Claim your cash

Hands up all of those optometrists who have not claimed their 270 CET training grant from the Department of Health yet.

If your hand is now in the air you have about a fortnight in which to make your claim for training funds to pay for your Continuing Education and Training.

The cash is available to primary care trust ophthalmic contractors who provide General Ophthalmic Services for the National Health Service. That means if you are a locum or work for a GOS contractor you will have to make arrangements for the money to be claimed on your behalf.

The deadline for presenting your claim is October 31 and all of the information on who is eligible for what can be found of the Department of Health website.

The form to claim on, for the technologically minded, can be found at: www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/11/70/78/04117078.pdf .

If you have any doubt that you should bother claiming this training cash, spend a little time thinking about what the NHS has in store for you.

After years of lobbying by the profession to have a wider role in primary care the Government looks like it is ready to bring optometry into the primary care fold.

The recently announced review of the GOS (see Optician, September 2) gives a flavour of what the role the NHS sees for optometry.

Despite the protestations of the optical bodies, the Government clearly has its own ideas of the roles optometry can play in patient care. They will all require training.