College airs concerns over timing of CET list

The scheme, which will establish a separate list of practitioners who have achieved a number of contact lens CET credits from next year, received the go-ahead last month (News, May 28). However, after a College meeting this week involving secretary Peter Leigh and president Gwyneth Morgan it has now made a statement reminding the profession it had initial reservations about introducing the scheme at this time (News, March 26), and has continued to express concern over the pace of the project's implementation. After consultation in March the College proposed that the GOC aim to include a specified number of credits over three years as a minimum standard to enter the list. This week a College spokeswoman said it had given further advice on other aspects of the matter. 'We would have hoped to have had more discussions on the details before the scheme was implemented,' she said. With development of the College's profession-wide CET, concentrating on one specific area could detract from the College's first priority of CET for the 'whole profession', she commented. 'The College is also currently discussing the best method of recording CET points accrued and considering how this method can fit into the GOC's scheme,' she said, 'as well as being sufficiently adaptable to work with any new such lists.' One of the principal problems with the current scheme, said the College, was what constituted contact lens CET. 'We would have preferred to have given the broader area of CET time to settle down before introducing schemes for speciality areas of practice such as contact lenses,' the spokeswoman said. 'Therapeutics and shared care are also areas that may well require specific CET in the future.' - See Comment, page 8.