New standards for General Optical Council registrants which come into effect on April 1 2016 have been welcomed by the Association for Independent Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians (AIO), but the organisation has expressed its disappointment over some of the new measures for students.
AIO chairman Peter Warren said: ‘We are disappointed that standards for students have been introduced, particularly when they have not been limited to patient interaction. It is not clear why the world of optics should be unique among other medical professions in requiring this.
‘It seems that a minor indiscretion, completely unrelated to optics, (perhaps made after a night out with fellow students) could lead to some sort of sanction by the GOC, which seems a little extreme.’
Responding to the AIO's comments, GOC director of strategy Alistar Bridge said: 'It is important to understand that students are currently subject to the same Code of Conduct as fully-qualified registrants, so them being subject to GOC standards will not be new. Introducing separate student standards from April 1 will reflect that they are still learning and developing their skills and will be a positive development for students.
'It is a legal requirement for us to register and set standards for students. This makes optics unique among healthcare professions and having consulted in 2013 we agree with the AIO that it should not be necessary, at least up until the pre-reg year. However, we cannot remove this requirement ourselves and it would need the Government to change the law. We still hope to see this happen but until it does we remain duty-bound to register and set standards for students.
'It is also important to remember that although students and fully-qualified professionals can be held accountable for their behaviour away from the workplace we do not sanction registrants for ‘minor indiscretions’. Only serious allegations are referred for a fitness to practise hearing and the threshold for erasure is particularly high. Erasure is appropriate when the behaviour is fundamentally incompatible with being a registered professional and this most commonly manifests itself in serious criminal convictions rather than youthful indiscretions or one-off clinical errors as is sometimes perceived.'