The General Optical Council has agreed new standards of practice for optometrists, dispensing opticians and optical students – but not businesses – in a council meeting this week.
Coming into effect from April next year, the standards were designed to make the GOC’s expectations ‘much clearer’.
They left room for registrants to use their professional judgement in deciding how to apply the standards in any given situation, a statement added.
‘The standards are flexible enough to deal with future developments in practice across the four nations of the UK. They are also flexible enough for registrants to apply regardless of whether they are employees, locums or business owners and whether they work on the high street, in hospital or in domiciliary settings,’ a statement said.
There were 206 responses to a public consultation on the standards, including 165 from optometrists and 17 from organisations.
As part of the consultation, 82 per cent of the almost 1,900 registrants who responded to an online survey supported the GOC’s new approach to standards. This includes 57 per cent who supported the new approach fully and 25 per cent who supported it partly or with reservations.
Samantha Peters, GOC chief executive and registrar, said: ‘Our focus is on ensuring that our standards protect and promote the public’s health and safety and it is encouraging to have had such a high level of response from registrants and other stakeholders on the changes we’re making.
‘We know the importance of listening, and we’ve used the extensive feedback we received to make changes to enhance the clarity of our standards, and to make them easier to use and more proportionate. I’d like to reiterate our thanks to everyone who has got involved in the consultation.’
The revised version of the GOC standards framework presented to Council, which included guidelines on communication, skills and record keeping, included a separate set of standards for students.
As part of their annual retention process, registrants will have to declare that they have read and will abide by the standards and have to do at least one piece of CET on standards as part of the 2016-18 cycle.