Actus questions the point of evidence-based practice (‘Where’s the evidence for evidence-based practice’ Optician 9.3.18). The point is to support best practice and public trust. For any profession to be defined and trusted by the public, it needs to be continuously reviewing, renewing and revising the evidence that underpins existing practice and informs the development of new practice.
As the professional body for optometry, the College takes its public interest duty, as the impartial custodian of the specialist knowledge that optometric practice is founded upon, very seriously. And this is more important in a profession that mostly operates in a commercial setting.
Actus questions the purpose of research that ‘proves the obvious’, but for optometry to develop and grow to meet the changing needs of the UK population, there must be dialogue with decision makers and this needs to be supported by reliable knowledge, based on sound evidence. There is no doubt that research has the capacity to show us things that we may not be expecting, but to suggest that we should not do research in case it simply confirms what we believed, rather misses the point. For example, we did not know that smoking was the cause of 95% of lung cancer until research evidence proved that it was.
Actus also references a College-funded paper and suggests that many registrants may not understand aspects of that paper. Because research-based evidence is such a vital foundation for the profession, we develop resources to support members’ understanding of research findings and how they then should translate to practice. We also provide access to a wide range of research sources and information services, including British Standards, free of charge for all College members.
The College recognises that all research is not equal and that a hierarchy of evidence needs to be applied. We are a signatory to the All Trials Campaign, which aims to promote good practice in clinical trials and we have clear guidance on ethical standards for research. However, varying quality of research should only really encourage us to work harder to ensure that optometric evidence is of the highest quality and based on the most reliable work. Where there are gaps, we should aim to set up robust projects aimed at filling them.
We cannot be complacent in this. The profession’s contract with the public is not open ended – it is conditional on the profession taking responsibility for the specialist knowledge on which they rely, and promoting and developing that for the benefit of the public.