CET snapshot shows those missing out

Internal figures sent to the GOC by its CET management company Vantage this month have provided a snapshot of the numbers of professionals involved in compulsory CET.

Hundreds of practitioners have yet to open an official CET account as the deadline for collecting 36 points creeps ever nearer - and bizarrely, nearly as many have opened a cetoptics account but have not registered any points.

The latter figure reinforces the need for many registrants to enter the cetoptics website and in the 'my CET' area confirm their pending points.
In total there are 14,975 registrants with an account on cetoptics - Vantage's website for practitioners to confirm their credits - with 5,131 of those who have achieved 36 points or more.

The figures reveal 4,891 registrants have between 24 and 35 points, 2,117 have between 12 and 23 points, and 1,012 have between 1 and 11 points. Strangely, 1,651 people have registered an account, but have yet to enter any points.

In total 1,856 people on the GOC's register do not have an account on cetoptics, and nearly half of those (700) do not have any points.
A spokeswoman for the GOC said the council was not overly concerned that some practitioners were slow to register with the official cetoptics website, or had registered but had not credited themselves with any points.

'We don't have any theories as to why so many have set up an account but are yet to register points,' she said. 'It may be that they just haven't confirmed their points.

'As to the total number without an account we're feeling positive the situation is moving forward. There is a certain number of people who come off the register every year, through retirements or other reasons, totalling around 600, so they'll probably be in that total.'

The figures, up-to-date at February 6 2006, show that 10,008 optometrists have a cetoptics account, with 3,889 dispensing opticians and 1,068 contact lens dispensing opticians.

Of those, there are 3,897 high achieving optometrists who have 36 points or more, and 784 dispensing opticians have reached that level.
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