The General Optical Council has made changes to the qualification requirements for contact lens opticians (CLOs) that enabled specialist entry to the GOC register.
This was implemented on March 16 with an aim to meet the changing needs of patients. It was also created to stay up-to-date with evolutions in higher education and across UK commissioning eye care services.
Proposed documents – Outcomes for Approved Qualifications, Standards for Approved Qualifications, and Quality and Assurance Enhancement Method – will replace the Contact Lens Handbook (2007), Contact Lens Speciality Core Competencies (2011), and the policies on supervision and recognition of prior learning.
The seven key changes outlined included:
- Candidates will need a single qualification approved by the GOC as an academic award or a regulated qualification framework (RQF, level 6)
- There will be no proposed minimum, maximum time or credit volume required for the qualification or duration of clinical experience, except the need for approximately 225 hours of experience in practice
- Feedback must be used from a range of stakeholders to enable approval of the qualification, including patients and members of the eye care team
- An outcomes-based approach will be used through the measurement of ‘Miller’s Pyramid of Clinical Competence’
- Qualification providers are responsible for the assessment of students’ achievement of the outcomes and recruiting and selecting trainees onto a programme leading to a qualification.
Marcus Dye, acting director of regulatory strategy at the GOC, said: ‘We are pleased to receive the Council’s approval on these updated requirements, subject to some small alterations following feedback from Council. The requirements will ensure that the qualifications we approve going forward are responsive to the changing needs of patients and service-users, changes in higher education, and the increased expectations of trainees, commissioners and employers.’
The changes resulted from a survey consultation with optical bodies and professional individuals carried out between September 2021 and January 2022.
Meeting adjourned
The GOC consultation report revealed that 66% of respondents agreed with the proposal to replace the handbooks and related policies, while 14% disagreed. Almost half (48%) believed the changes would positively impact individuals/groups, especially on maintaining or reducing the cost of training, and described the outcomes approved as ‘reasonable, realistic, and achievable’.
In contrast, around a quarter (24%) felt there would be negative impacts, highlighting potential lowering of pay and the reduction of standards posing a risk to the public. While the majority agreed Level 6 RQF would be the ‘appropriate level of qualification’, others expressed this may be too low, especially in comparison to other optometry qualification requirements.
For the Outcomes for Approved Qualification document, 79% believed it would have a positive impact on the expected knowledge, skill and behaviour of future CLOs. However, a third still thought changes need to be made, which included the level of assessment assigned to specific outcomes, wording, or technical details, such as more defined scope of eye disease conditions CLOs diagnose or manage.
The new outcomes-based approach was expected to bring consistency across optometry qualifications and flexibility for providers. Professionals felt adopting Miller’s Pyramid was a logical choice as it was already used for the dispensing optician qualification and in other healthcare professions.
The GOC would focus on helping providers at a pace that best suited them to adapt their qualifications to new standards.
Clinical concerns
Removal of minimum and maximum time frame requirements aimed to provide increased flexibility for trainees and employers due to current difficulties when arranging clinical experience, often alongside dispensing optician duties, according to the report.
On the other hand, some professionals were concerned this would result in too little clinical experience, adding that a greater level of time spent with real patients would be beneficial. The report said that this ‘could impact standards in the profession and patient safety.’
- See the full report on the GOC website atbit.ly/3JTiRrs.