No sanctions for one-off incident

A GOC fitness to practise committee has decided not to impose any sanctions on a north London optometrist over allegations he wrongly gave a patient the all clear.

It had been alleged that David Martin Hershman's fitness to practise was impaired because during an examination on the June 10 2004 he did not undertake the patient's intraocular pressures, did not recall the patient for further testing and failed to undertake a visual field test.

The panel heard that the 66-year-old patient was found to be suffering from a condition causing 'some loss of vision' two years after the optometrist gave him the all clear.