What has marked the General Optical Council out as being different from its fellow healthcare regulators is its constitution. Fifty years ago when the Council was formed the only way the numerous factions could achieve registration was by compromise.
This produced the mix of lay members, ophthalmologists, ophthalmic opticians, as they were then called, and dispensing opticians. In addition the chairman was to be appointed by the Privy Council probably as much to keep the warring factions apart as anything else! This in itself was unheard of and to this day no optical professional member has served in any of the three principal positions on Council.
Perhaps not surprisingly this structure has been both a weakness and a strength. While there has been a tendency for one group or another to dominate, the need to compromise has kept the GOC in the forefront of innovation in health professional regulation and many of the changes made in the last few years have informed government thinking. Until recently it was only the deregulatory pressures of the Thatcher era that imposed change on the GOC.
All this is about to change with the imposition of new structures on all healthcare regulators. The GOC has once again been in the vanguard making early decisions, probably in the hope that it might have some chance of influencing change. This may be highly commendable but there has to be concern that what is being imposed is not workable.
Reducing the size of the Council is in keeping with modern business practice but brings with it serious problems. Initially with only 12 members, 13 when the law is changed to allow a lay majority, and the requirement for parity between professional and lay members there is the risk of a new Council being short of the professional expertise that will be needed to guide its decision-making process. This will be made more difficult by the regulation of two professions. To try to argue that an understanding of the profession and professional input at this level is not critical is a nonsense. What is even more extraordinary is the intention to separate the Council from its committees. One wonders how its members will gain the in-depth understanding of the profession and the issues involved in its regulation without the background knowledge that committee work brings.
Equally amazing is the proposal to pay a salary of £12,000 to Council members. A rate of £300 a day suggests around 40 days a year commitment which, despite reports to the contrary, seems to be considerably more than the current members’ attendance. Aside from the cost to the optical taxpayer and other changes one wonders where suitable people will be found who can devote eight weeks a year to the work of the Council.