Complaints service subject to tender

Organisations involved in patient care – including the likes of the General Dental Council – could bid to run an optical complaints service for the public.

At yesterday’s meeting GOC members were handed a draft tender document for a mediation service for disputes between optical practices and patients.

Currently the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS) is run from its premises in London, and last year the GOC established a contractual agreement with the OCCS to provide a mediation service funded by an annual registrant fee of £7. The agreement was made after several years in which the OCCS was funded by optics’ professional bodies.

‘The contract for delivery of the Optical Consumer Complaints Service will be due for renewal in April 2007,’ said a GOC spokeswoman.

‘Contractors will be invited to tender to provide the service for the next three years.

’She said the contract will be designed to give more flexibility to deal with ‘the full range of consumer complaints’.It is also intended that the new service will give more clarity regarding which issues should be dealt with by the GOC’s fitness to practise procedures, and which should be handled by the consumer complaints service itself.

The annual budget for the OCCS contract is £100,000, GOC members heard yesterday. Under the Council’s financial rules where expenditure exceeds £100,000 annually then this provision of goods and services must be subject to a tender.

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