Radical proposals to change the General Optical Council's fitness to practise (FTP) rules were agreed at a session of the Council last week.
Under the changes the investigation committee (IC) would be replaced by case examiners to determine if complaints need to be handled at an FTP hearing. In future the GOC will also consider applying costs against defendants who cause cases to be unduly expensive or long by failing to comply with requests or employ other ruses.
These changes, along with a fast-track system for simple cases and an electronic case management system, are designed to meet new performance indicators for the time cases take to be heard and improve the efficiency of the FTP process.
The meeting heard praise for the IC and said the changes were all about efficiency and speed and not the effectiveness of the IC. It was expected that some of the IC would become case examiners, said David Howell, director of regulatory services. He said the changes would put the GOC in second place behind the GMC in terms of modern regulatory process. 'Most regulators are 50 years behind,' he added.
The aim of the changes is to reduce the time taken to investigate cases from an average of 16 months to three months for simple cases, six months for standard cases and nine months for complex cases.
Under the current IC system, said Howell, nine members have to meet once a month and can only get through 20 cases in a day. The documents take two days to prepare, he added.
About 150 cases come before the IC each year 25 made it to a hearing in the last 12 months. There are currently 33 live cases in the system.
Howell said concerns had been raised by the Association of Optometrists that only two case examiners would decide if a hearing was required but he said in many cases more people would be involved. If in the unusual event that case examiners couldn't agree it could be put before the IC.
On the issue of costs, Bradley said in the interest of openness and fairness this would be a two-way street and cleared defendants could seek costs. 'If we mess up we [the GOC] will have [to pay] costs.'
Howell had urged the meeting to accept the changes which had been agreed with the DoH. If major alterations were made a new consultation process would be required and they would not have parliamentary time needed.