Dispensing optician removed from General Optical Council registers

A dispensing optician and joint venture partner alleged to have knowingly specified inferior ophthalmic lenses to patients has been erased from General Optical Council registers by a fitness to practise committee.

The GOC alleged that between July 2010 and July 2012, Lee Bernard of Witham in Essex, failed to ensure that 426 lens orders met the specification ordered by patients and then failed to inform them of changes to orders. It further alleged that he personally processed 135 of those orders.

The committee said Bernard had already been investigated by Specsavers’ loss prevention department in July 2012 after an anonymous complaint was made. Investigators estimated that patients were overcharged by nearly £13,000. The registrant resigned after the findings were presented and offered to pay £27,000 to cover the cost of the investigation. Bernard admitted to most of the particulars of the allegations made by the committee but challenged the allegation that he knew or believed that patients were receiving inferior quality products.