Optometrist fined at disciplinary hearing

A north London optometrist has been fined the maximum financial penalty after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Rob Lamont, from Muswell Hill, appeared before a disciplinary panel of the GOC last week following allegations that he had failed to take sufficient steps to diagnose a patient who later had surgery for a detached retina, and in addition he had carried out 37 eye examinations when not registered.

At a hearing in March this year the panel was told that the patient, Timothy Spinks, had complained to the optometrist of blurred vision and a floating black dot. His consultation followed an incident in which the patient had received a blow on the back of the head. He had been diagnosed as suffering mild concussion.

Spinks claimed that Lamont had 'not been too concerned' about the sight in his left eye, and stated that while he was in Australia his vision became progressively worse before surgery was necessary.

Lamont denied being told by Spinks about the presence of floaters, claimed he had not mentioned 'distortion', and said he had no recollection of him saying he had been hit on the head.

Martin Forde, for Lamont, said his client had not completed his investigation of Spinks' condition and that he had hoped to see him again.

However, he did not, and he had assumed Spinks had gone elsewhere for treatment. Submitting that there had been a 'breakdown in communication', he said: 'It is not one which means he is guilty of serious professional misconduct.'

Lamont was cleared of failing to seek information about the blow to the patient's head and failing to perform a binocular vision test.

Committee chairman David Pyle said that the panel was satisfied that having identified a potential cause for concern the action of a reasonably competent practitioner would have been to go further than Lamont did in taking steps to follow up the patient and to record those steps on the patient record card.

'The question of whether such a falling short is serious is a finely balanced one,' he stated.

'That said, we are entirely satisfiedthat testing the sight of patients over a three-year period without registration amounts to serious professional misconduct.'

At the resumed hearing this week, the committee also heard that Lamont had not been on the Register following expiry in March 1999 before returning on July 22 2003.

Lamont commented: 'It was partly down to an oversight. In 2000 the forms went to my old address - I'd moved - and I did not receive the papers and did not think about registration.'

Pyle concluded: 'It must be understood that the obligation to register goes to the heart of the regulation of the profession.' He said the maximum fine of 1,600 was imposed to reinforce the importance of continuing registration.