General Optical Council Highlights Importance Of Student Supervision, UK

Main Category: Eye Health / Blindness
Also Included In: Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 01 Jul 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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The General Optical Council (GOC) is today reminding all optical businesses, students and supervisors to ensure their current arrangements for professional supervision of students meet the requirements outlined by the GOC, and examination or assessment bodies. This follows the recent Fitness to Practise (FTP) hearing involving Boots Opticians Ltd (a GOC-registered business); Trevor Burgess, a registered student dispensing optician; and Richard Simmons, a registered dispensing optician.

On 26 June, an independent FTP Committee determined that Boots Opticians Ltd had failed to take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent Trevor Burgess from dispensing spectacles to a patient under the age of 16. The Committee found that the fitness to practise of Boots Opticians Ltd was impaired, and imposed a fine of £30,000. Trevor Burgess was given a formal warning. No sanction was imposed on Richard Simmons.

GOC chief executive and registrar, Dian Taylor commented: "Supervision of students is essential for protecting patients and the public. This case highlights the importance of having proper supervision mechanisms in place, and ensuring those mechanisms are communicated to staff, and implemented at ground level".

Dian Taylor added: "With appropriate supervision, students can develop the core competencies they need to practise safely, in a controlled, restricted environment. But without it, students may not know their limits, and the consequences can be potentially harmful to patients."

By law, GOC-registered students (of both optometry and dispensing optics) must not carry out any of the following unless supervised by a GOC-registered professional:

- Testing sight
- Fitting contact lenses
- Dispensing to children under 16, or to the visually impaired

Business registrants are bound by the GOC's Code of Conduct for business registrants. This is available from http://www.optical.org

'Supervision' means that the supervisor must be on the same premises as the student they are supervising, and in a position to intervene at any time.

Detailed guidance on supervision is published by ABDO and the College of Optometrists. Visit http://www.abdo.org.uk or http://www.college-optometrists.org

Source
General Optical Council