FTP complaints to GOC rise by almost half

New data from the General Optical Council’s annual report has shown that complaints against registered practitioners has increased by 48 per cent in 2014/15.

The regulator received a total of 287 complaints between the registration year time frame of April 1 2014 and March 31 2015. Of the complaints received, 279 resulted in full investigations being opened. The figures mean that nearly 1 per cent (0.98) of the total number of registrants have been the subject of a complaint during the 12-month registration period.

On the potential reasons for the increase, the GOC said: ‘There is no one specific driver that we have been able to identify and it would appear to be consistent with increases in levels of complaints experienced across most healthcare regulators.