The General Optical Council (GOC) met earlier this month to consider its progress on several objectives and make necessary regulatory decisions. On the agenda for discussion were qualifications for approval, fitness to practise performance, the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS) and a report on the sector’s education providers.
New qualifications
GOC councillors were asked to consider three new qualifications for approval. The three courses were all university level qualifications and had previously been provisionally approved with students having already begun the courses in each case.
Up for the GOC’s final approval were the BSc (Hons) optometry undergraduate course at the University of the West of England, the Independent Prescribing for optometrists’ course at the University of Hertfordshire and the BSc (Hons) course in ophthalmic dispensing at the University of Central Lancashire.
The council decided to approve all three qualifications. Annual visits to each course had taken place over several years, with reports from these visits recommending that the council approve all three qualifications. However, the recommendation to approve Hertfordshire’s independent prescribing qualification came with two conditions that required the university to both submit the external examiner’s final report to the 2021 examinations board and use the GOC’s notification of events and changes process to inform the GOC of a decision not to accept certain applicants.
Fitness to practise
The GOC assessed progress against its own 2021 fitness to practise (FTP) performance projections and expectations. The council found that, since the FTP improvement programme was introduced in 2019 the number of opened investigations had dropped from 161 in 2019-20 to 65 in 2020-21. However, it also noted that it had not met the Professional Standards Authority’s standard for timely progression of cases over the last five years.
This drop in case numbers was attributed to the introduction of the GOC’s acceptance criteria as part of the regulator’s programme of work to improve this area. The criteria set out a threshold that new FTP complaints are assessed against before being accepted for investigation.
The GOC explained: ‘Prior to the reform process, the absence of a threshold meant that large numbers of lower-level concerns entered the formal system. This was highlighted in 2018-19 when our case examiners determined that 84% of cases did not require referral to the FTP committee.’
All triage objectives were either met or exceeded in relation to the GOC’s forecast. Number of investigations, case examiner decisions and referral rate to the FTP committee were also all down on the forecasted goals. However, the average number of weeks the GOC took to open investigations from the date of complaint (57) exceeded both the previous year’s total (55) and the forecasted goal (26). This was attributed to disruption caused by the pandemic.
However, the GOC said its team efficiently handled an extra 52 referrals related to coronavirus: ‘We are very pleased with the way the team responded to this challenge. In statistical terms, we are pleased that in the final quarter of the 2020-21 year we were able to get fully on top of the triage caseload.’
Quality education
The regulator noted the findings of the 2019-20 Annual Monitoring and Reporting report, which allowed it to reflect on the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on optical education and fulfil its role as the sector’s quality assurance provider.
The GOC found that optometry courses across the country reported a high ratio of applications to admissions, strong academic qualifications amongst applicants and high levels of student progression and attainment. However, the report found that ophthalmic dispensing courses were experiencing ongoing difficulties in recruiting students because of the pandemic, despite high levels of student progression.
In terms of satisfaction with their courses, the report found that those studying optometry and ophthalmic dispensing rated their programmes at levels above the national average in the National Student Survey.
One significant impact of the pandemic that the report confirmed was a lower number of students qualifying as optometrists or DOs due to pre-registration placements and practical examinations being postponed.
Having analysed the report’s findings, the GOC noted several risks that required monitoring. These included sustainability of student numbers, availability of pre-registration placements and resourcing and staffing concerns. The GOC’s education strategic review was noted by some education providers in the report as a risk to resourcing, owing to ‘uncertainty surrounding the funding of its implementation.’
- A full set of the Council meeting’s papers has been made available here: https://www.optical.org/en/get-involved/Council_me...