GOC consults on fitness to practise acceptance criteria

The General Optical Council (GOC) has launched a consultation on introducing formal fitness to practice acceptance criteria.

As suggested in the discussions, the criteria would define the circumstances where the GOC will accept a complaint as an allegation of a registrant’s impaired fitness to practice. Those who do not meet the criteria would be closed without referral to GOC case examiners.

Lisa Davis, GOC Director of Fitness to Practise, explained: ‘These acceptance criteria would give us a transparent process for closing non-fitness to practise complaints quickly. This might include minor clinical or consumer concerns which could not call into question a practitioner’s fitness to practise.’