Optometrist suspended for four months

Bristol-based optometrist Arminder Panesar has been handed a four month suspension from the GOC register.

A committee found Panesar’s fitness to practise impaired by virtue of four matters of misconduct relating to two patients and a criminal conviction for driving without proper insurance.

The first patient complained after paying £679 for glasses at Panesar’s company, Milsom Eye Company, the day before it ceased trading, while a second said he was prescribed a pair of glasses he did not want following a DVLA assessment he attended.

FTP committee chair Ian Crookall said: ‘The committee considered that whilst the registrant had not placed either patient at unwarranted risk of harm, he had breached fundamental tenets of his profession and had brought his profession into disrepute.