President David Cartwright's speech to the Jubilee lunch June 20 2005
Baroness, Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, members of Council.
Good afternoon and thank you for coming to celebrate the College’s 25th anniversary – our silver jubilee.
I am David Cartwright and I’m the 18th President of the College of Optometrists. It is a particular pleasure to stand here today surrounded by so many past presidents of the College. I am very conscious that I have the fortunate circumstance to be in office on this day and I feel I am speaking on behalf of all our past presidents. All but four of my predecessors have been able to join us and I would like to pay them all tribute for the work they have done to get the College to where it is today.
As you will have worked out by now, the College was founded in 1980. In the same year sixpence pieces ceased to be legal tender, no computers or internet, and Philips released the Compact Disc player. One of the biggest news stories of the year was the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman in New York. We became a nation of soap addicts, anxious to know, “Who shot JR?”; West Ham won the FA cup, beating Arsenal 1-0 in the final; and the Rubik’s Cube was voted toy of the year.
And while Lech Walesa was forming Solidarity in Poland, Rhodesia was becoming Zimbabwe, and the American people were electing an actor as their 40th President, here in Britain, the British Optical Association, the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers and the Scottish Association of Optometrists were founding a single institution as the professional examining body for ophthalmic opticians. Admittedly, less impactful on a global level, nonetheless, the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians was a big deal for optics and was the result of a number of years of discussion and negotiation.
The College came into existence on 1 March 1980, with Philip Cole, who is sitting with me today, elected as its first president. One Member of the founding Council of 1980, Bob Chappell, remains a councillor today and another, Michael Wolffe only left our number in March this year after many years of service and an unshakeable belief in his role to do his best for the profession and the public, even when that meant asking the most difficult questions! By September of 1980, 5,615 of those eligible to join the College had done so. The first annual subscription fee, for 1980/81, was set at £45. In November that year Tom Collingridge was appointed the College’s full-time General Secretary, a position he held for eleven years. Tom hasn’t been able to join us from his home in France today but was responsible for establishing the administration of the College, acting as the principal advisor to the College Council – in forceful or persuasive style as the situation demanded – and is remembered by the staff who knew him as a real “people person”.
It was in 1984 that the College made its first cautious approach towards attaining a Royal Charter. In 1987 it became the British College of Optometrists before turning attention once more to petitioning for a Royal Charter in 1992. The Charter was finally granted on 18 September 1995, and “The College of Optometrists” adopted as our new name, in recognition of the change of status conferred by the Royal Charter.
Of course optometry too looked very different in 1980; an NHS examination for all, followed by dispensing a delightful 524 in black, brown, blue or perhaps pink, private frames would be in a draw and remember there was no advertising and prices in windows. Varifocals were virtually unheard of, hard contact lenses, no unregistered dispensing, no Boots, Vision Express or Specsavers.
Over the last 25 years the optics world has changed and the College, while evolving itself, has been a constant support for practitioners. The environment in which College Members practise will continue to change fast - new policies and initiatives and increased regulation will continue to impact on us for the foreseeable future. The “NHS Improvement Plan: Putting People at the heart of Public Services”; the model care pathways for cataract, glaucoma, low vision and ARMD developed by the Eye Care Services Steering Group; and recent amendments to The Opticians Act will all bring changes, and present opportunities to the profession. The College’s role in this changing environment will be to remain a constant guide and professional support to our Members enabling them to make choices about the way they develop their services.
Since its foundation, the College has played a vital role in positioning Optometry in the minds of practitioners, politicians, Government departments, other professions and the public. Over these years the College has done a huge amount of work to support our members and to set the agenda for the standards within the profession, to ensure that members of the public receive excellent care during a visit to their optometrist.
It is interesting to reflect on the change in practice over the last 25 years, Fields, tonometry and other investigative techniques are now the norm.
One of the College’s fundamental roles is the development of future professionals. While we enjoy lunch here today, the latest cohort of trainees is taking their final, PQE2, examinations in Birmingham. They will be among the last students to go through a final examination in ten parts, as the pre registration period will be replaced by the College’s New Scheme for Registration from this summer following provisional approval by the GOC in April. This new Scheme marks a move to a competence-based assessment of trainees, to testing what they can do, not just what they know and is set to put our newly qualified optometrists in a very strong position to grasp the opportunities that lie ahead of them as they embark on their careers.
Recent consumer research carried out on the College’s behalf by NOP, confirmed that consumers’ main motivation in visiting their optometrist is to have their sight tested, something they do on a regular basis and for which they recognise the importance. People are very satisfied with the service they receive and increasingly see a visit to the optometrist as part of their healthcare regime. Yet while almost half identified the prescribing of drugs to treat minor eye complaints as a service they would like their optometrist to provide in the future, currently only one in ten people would consult him/her with a minor eye complaint such as conjunctivitis – a similar number would consult their pharmacist. This gap demonstrates the need to enhance the profile of optometry in the minds of the public, other healthcare professionals and policy makers – an obvious role for the College as it moves into its second quarter century.
The College’s structure has to be right in order to support our core purpose of providing the highest possible level of professional support to our members so that they in turn can provide the best level of professional service to the public.
In 2005 the College is in a stronger position than ever. We now have a Council comprising 36 members, regionally elected, younger and more ethnically diverse than ever before and between them responsible for determining the strategic and professional direction of the College. The Council is backed by a smaller board of trustees. These changes were a direct response to feedback from members who wanted a College that was more representative of its membership, quicker to make decisions and more obviously relevant to their day-to-day practice.
A strong and dedicated staff team that was also re-structured following the management review complements the College Council. Headed by Chief Executive, Bryony Pawinska, who joined the College in 2003, the current operational structure has been in place for a year and a half now and the consolidation of activity into three main directorates, coupled with strong operational management, is really delivering results.
The challenge for the College as it moves forward is to build on the foundations of its first 25 years and to ensure it becomes and remains a membership organisation and professional body fit for the 21st century, enjoying strong and lasting relationships with its members and an excellent reputation within the sector and beyond.
I would like to thank our honoured guests for celebrating with us today.
Finally The College is a success because of the people who work so hard to make it so. I would like to thank all College staff for their tireless efforts that go into the smooth running of Craven St. Last but most importantly I would like to thank all Council members, past and present, who have unselfishly given huge amounts of time and effort voluntarily to ensure the success of the first 25 years. I look forward to the next twenty-five, which I am confident will see the College and the profession moving forward and stronger than ever.