ABDO appeals for funding for dispensing optician CET

This was the response from the Association of British Dispensing Opticians to the General Optical Council's briefs for legislative change. ABDO also said that if the GOC gained powers to make CET compulsory, it should use that power only after the professional bodies have had time to act. President of ABDO, Eric Hall, has written to health minister John Denham claiming that although DOs carry out 50 per cent of all contact lens work in Britain, they are disadvantaged because the Department of Health as yet provides no funding for a dispensing optician CET scheme. Tony Garrett, ABDO's general secretary, who attended last week's meeting with the GOC's statutory regulation working group, said funding for a DO scheme was essential. 'Funding is one of the areas that has caused us most concern when the GOC talks about compulsory CET,' he said. 'The College of Optometrists gets government money for CET, but despite our members doing around half of the contact lens work in this country we get nothing yet financially for CET.' Mr Garrett was confident that a CET programme would be in place for DOs in future, and added that ABDO was to appoint its own 'CET officer' to oversee its own scheme. 'We accept CET is here to stay and we are developing our own scheme in this area across all dispensing work,' he said. 'The GOC has taken upon itself powers which might progress to compulsory CET. We said by all means take the powers, but if you make CET compulsory there must be a provision for funds as well.' - ABDO will host a 'Contact lens CET day' following its 1999 conference (September 25-27) at The Raven Hotel, Droitwich, Worcestershire, on September 28.