Chris Bennett: Calls for an optometrists’ trade union are sure to increase in wake of Hertford decision

News that tacit agreement for the establishment of a new optometry course at Hertford University has been given approval by the General Optical Council and the College of Optometrists will come as a hammer blow to those who objected to the plans in the spring.

Rumblings that a new course was being planned have been quietly reverberating around the profession for well over a year. When that rumbling became more audible, earlier this year, an online petition was hastily set up and gathered 2,500 signatures in its first fortnight. As the rumblings subsided so did the volume of the opposition.

At the beginning of the year, Optician did a bit of uncharacteristic fence-sitting on the issue. The issues are all fairly clear, if a little mixed in their appeal.