Comment: Keeping an eye on the poor relation

It's strange how the optical profession is only treated as a fully-fledged part of the medical community when it comes to regulation. If optometrists routinely received from the NHS the six-figure salaries doled out to doctors or enjoyed the contractual denouement dentists won, think what happy places optical practices would be.

Care would be thorough, spectacles cheap and patients happy. As it is, optometry is at best a poor relation in the world of NHS cash entitlement, while DOs are left out in the cold as other professions feast at the NHS-funded table.

While cash may not be forthcoming for purposes as basic as the funding of continuing education and training for DOs, the new Health and Social Care Bill is in no doubt about how the optical health professions should conduct themselves. The Bill's text is littered with references to Shipman, Allitt and reports on the efficacy of doctors to back its need to regulate, but it is only in the passages about revalidation, regulation and fitness to practise that areas like optics get a mention.