GOC panel warns DO

Dispensing optician Kenneth Bissell has been handed a two-year warning by the GOC after admitting to failings when dispensing contact lenses to a patient.

The patient, a registered optometrist, first attended Bissell's contact lens practice in Birmingham in October 2010 for specialist contact lens help as she had been experiencing problems with contact lens wear, a GOC fitness to practise committee heard.

It was agreed that the registrant examined the patient on three occasions only between then and February 2011. On the first visit Bissell undertook a refraction - which he was entitled to do - but dispensed contact lenses based on his own findings and without obtaining the approval of an optometrist.