Visus writes: Confronting double standards

So, like elections and referenda, you wait all year for them then two come at once. I’m talking about professional standards on refractive surgery. April 2017 saw the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCO) launch its Professional Standards for Refractive Surgery¹ while the Optical Confederation has consulted on their proposed standards on the same subject.²

Call me naive but surely one set of standards covering the 100,000 procedures undertaken annually across the sector should suffice? Clearly the two organisations do not see eye to eye on the subject. Why? Is it because many of the procedures take place within the optical corporate sector and this doesn’t sit comfortably with the historic private practice of individual surgeons? Or is it because the corporate sector thinks the RCO is straying into territory outside its remit such as advertising. Interesting because some TV adverts for clear lens extraction certainly seem to stray into the areas of ‘better than you’ comparative advertising which breaches ASA and GOC standards.