An appeal brought by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) against the General Optical Council’s fitness to practise committee’s sanction against optometrist Honey Rose has been upheld by the Royal Courts of Justice.
Rose was handed a nine-month suspension without review in December 2020. A committee found her fitness to practise was impaired by virtue of misconduct following a failure to spot papilloedema caused by a build-up of fluid on the brain of eight-year-old Vinnie Barker in 2012. Barker died of hydrocephalus five months after his sight test with Rose.
The PSA appealed to the high court on the grounds that the assessment of the registrant’s fitness to practise wasn’t carried out properly and that the sanction wasn’t in the best interests of the protection of the public.
The case has now been referred back to the GOC and a differently constituted fitness to practise committee.