ABDO: 'GOC lacks regard for dispensing profession'

The General Optical Council has been accused of showing a lack of regard and engagement with the profession by the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) following the regulator’s latest call for input into its education strategic review (ESR).

In a statement released today, ABDO president Clive Marchant said by ruling out examining the appropriate level for training of DOs, the GOC had failed in what it set out to do.

Marchant said: ‘ABDO had training to become a dispensing optician benchmarked in 2006 by Ofqual, the independent regulator. We proposed our syllabus of education and assessment based on the GOC’s core competencies. We were delighted with the outcome from the Ofqual exercise, as it demonstrated the level of skill our members are achieving was at Level 6. We believe that at some point during 2011, without consultation, the GOC decided that the minimum baseline qualification level for an ophthalmic dispensing qualification would be Level 5. This was inserted into the Guidelines for the approval and quality assurance of routes to GOC registration for Dispensing Opticians with no discussion of the implications.