DO escapes erasure in fitness to practise case

The first full disciplinary case of the General Optical Council's newly formed fitness to practise panel this week found a Scottish-based dispensing optician guilty of serious professional misconduct and fined him 1,600.
Hugh Ross, who admitted the charges, was accused of making inaccurate claims to the value of 5,715 between April 1999 and December 2002 when he was area manager for Optical Direct opticians in Glasgow and Hamilton.
The Scottish ophthalmic division of NHS Scotland investigated the practice after detecting a large volume of spectacles dispensed and repaired there, along with haphazard claims for small frame supplements.
NHS Scotland appointed counter fraud services investigator Craig McKinley, who discovered that the number of inaccurate claims made by the practice as a whole between January 1999 and December 2002 amounted to 18,600.
Citing six patient cases at the hearing in London on September 27, GOC representative Nick Leale identified five types of inaccurate claim made by Ross, such as one where a patient had been supplied with a pair of spectacles eligible for a small frame supplement when new lenses had been fitted to the patient's current spectacle frames.
Ross was also accused of failing to make a written record of supplying patients with replacement spectacles.
Defence for Ross, Marie MacDonald, said her client had suffered mental health problems since the accusations brought against him but that he acknowledged his error of judgment.
She also stressed that Ross did not himself financially gain from the appointments and referred to his otherwise untarnished 24-year career in optics.
The committee found the allegation of serious professional misconduct admitted and proven.
Chairman Heather Wilcox said: 'Had you benefited financially we would have considered seriously erasing your name from the register. But in view of the factors made on your behalf by Ms MacDonald and the evidence that you received no direct financial benefit, we have determined to impose a financial penalty of 1,600 to be paid within three months.'