The GOC needs to give patients access to precise details of conditions imposed on registrants and do more work on gaining patients' perspectives, the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) has recommended.
The comments came in a CHRE report which praised the Council for successfully meeting the required standards of performance for health profession regulators.
The CHRE, which annually assesses the work of health profession regulators, including the GOC, said it would like the Council to consider implementing several recommendations. As a priority the GOC register, which enables the general public to check an individual's registration, should show the conditions imposed by fitness to practise panels alongside the registrant's record. The current system only indicates that conditions have been imposed, not what they are.
The CHRE also noted that the GOC does not conduct internal audits of fitness to practise decisions, and added that the Council therefore does not meet the standard in relation to that minimum requirement. While the regulator watchdog stressed there was no evidence to suggest there were any concerns about the decisions reached by panels, nevertheless, it recommended that it would like the GOC to consider setting up guidelines on case referrals by the investigations committee for a final stage hearing.
The CHRE also called on the Council to give consideration to setting 'more challenging' service standards in relation to timescales for dealing with fitness to practise cases.
It asked the GOC to do more work on gaining patients' opinions, stating that this was an important area on which it wanted to consider progress in next year's performance review.
Commenting on the the findings, GOC acting registrar and chief executive, Dian Taylor, said: 'We are encouraged to be recognised as an efficient and effective regulator by the CHRE. However, there is still a lot of work to be done. The Council will now look to the priorities outlined for 2008/9, such as improving the contents of the Opticians Register, and ensuring that the views of patients and the public are adequately represented in GOC policy development.'