Striving for influence

Bob Hughes, AOP chief executive designate, tells David Challinor it is the time for the profession to extend its clout within the Health Service

Bob Hughes is using his impressive skills of persuasion to tell me how optometry can seize the opportunities the 'modernised' health service has offered.

'We are already ahead of the game in terms of "patient choice",' he says. 'Our professionals are in the high street, with all the costs paid for by the private sector.

'My job is to galvanise the membership to gain the influence the profession needs.'

The former minister and MP has long been one of the more visible leaders of optics, and his new appointment at the AOP looks certain to make him more visible still.

I first interviewed him in the mid 1990s when he had just joined the profession as general secretary at FODO. Being both new to optometry we discussed how we were perplexed at a profession which seemed to have a plethora of representative bodies - when all agreed it was a singularity of voice which would best serve the profession.

Soon he set about reshaping FODO to be a more responsive federation to its membership's needs. To this end Hughes  shared as much information as he thought would benefit FODO members with the optical press and the profession at large. 

In addition, he and his colleagues in the multiples acted to stem the then growing manpower problem in the profession by establishing the optometry course at Anglia Polytechnic University.

Later on, attending the AOP's annual National Optometric Conference, I witnessed his controversial address on the need for more corporate representation within LOCs to improve their negotiating skills. Though this idea was denounced by a series of members speaking from the floor, in the long-run it has been adopted. Obviously Hughes is a man who can stand his ground in an argument.

So when meeting him again, I wondered whether now - as chief executive designate for the AOP - he would have changed his mind on the number of optical bodies dilemma I raised so long ago. He doesn't blink.

'I am still of that opinion,' he says.  'There should be two organisations - an educational college and one representative body. It's as simple as that.'