An optometrist alleged to have made a series of clinical failures relating to the care of patients over 60 years of age has been erased from General Optical Council registers by a fitness to practise committee.
Angela Miller began her employment with Specsavers in Dumfries in 2003 before moving to S and E Hornstein Opticians in Glasgow in 2008. The council said that while practising there, Miller routinely saw a substantial number of patients aged 60 and over.
It alleged that she failed to take retinal photos in a number of these cases, along with allegations on failures relating to undertaking and recording IOPs, dilation, visual fields and the status of anterior chamber angle. With the exception of the anterior chamber angle records, the committee said the tests were either statutory or mandatory in Scotland.
A practice-led investigation in 2010 addressed concerns that retinal photography had not been taken and led to the registrant’s resignation. Later that year the registrant was employed at Specsavers in Dumfries, where the Council alleged she failed to make timely referrals for cataract surgery and make records of IOPs. An investigation was made and the registrant was dismissed after she failed to apply for retention.
The committee said the registrant had failed to engage with any part of the fitness to practise process and that nothing less than erasure would be an appropriate sanction.