Memorandum submitted by the General Optical
Council (GOC)
The General Optical Council (GOC) is the statutory
regulatory body for opticians and optometrists in the United Kingdom
(UK). A person may not practice as an optician or optometrists
in the UK unless registered with the GOC.
The GOC notes that the Education and Skills
Committee has announced that it will be undertaking an inquiry
into the Bologna Process. The Committee is also undertaking an
additional inquiry into the future sustainability of the higher
education sector
This constitutes the GOC's written submissions
to both inquiries
In June 2006, the GOC confirmed the following
policy statement on Bologna:
"In order to safeguard the standards of
optometry and ophthalmic dispensing in the United Kingdom, and
so as to enhance student mobility, the General Optical Council
wishes to conform to the spirit of the Bologna Agreement. The
Council will therefore take all steps necessary to amend its Rules
and Regulations to enable it to proactively adopt the principles
of the Bologna Agreement. The Council recognises that the first
steps will be to investigate and resolve any barriers, caused
by the GOC's current Rules and Regulation, to the free mobility
of optometry and ophthalmic dispensing students within Europe".
Since June a project plan has been agreed and
the following work schedule is being pursued:
— A review of the core curriculum for
the undergraduate training of optometrists. (The core curriculum
for the training of dispensing opticians has recently been reviewed
and updated. The Group had a copy available to them.)
It has been agreed that to enable the free movement
of professionals the GOC will need a mechanism to assess the fit
between the competencies possessed by the migrating professional
and the scope of practice in the host country or profession. For
comparisons of competencies to be meaningful the Project Group
agreed that the first point in the work plan would need to be
a review of the UK optometry core curriculum. As the eight UK
optometry training universities will be most affected by any change
to the curriculum the universities have started work on this part
of the project.
— Possible benchmarking of the revised
UK core curricula against other EEA national training curricula.
An exercise is underway to prepare a summary
of the current knowledge of the optical and optometric scope of
practice in the major EEA countries.
— The Project Group to consider the
extent to which the revised UK optometry undergraduate curriculum
constitutes the syllabus for the professional qualifying examination
Part 1 for entry to the UK register.
It has been resolved to consider this point
during the review of the UK optometry core curriculum.
— The Project Group to consider the
extent to which the revised syllabus for the European Diploma
of the European Committee on Optometry and Optics (ECOO) should
be taken into account when reviewing the UK curriculum.
It has been resolved to consider this point
during the review of the UK optometry core curriculum.
— A review of the GOC Rules on the
Testing of Sight while training as an optometrist
— A visit to the Utrecht University
in the Netherlands
— A visit to the optometry course in
the Republic of Ireland
Work scheduled for later in 2007.
FUTURE SUSTAINABILITY
OF THE
HIGHER EDUCATION
SECTOR
The GOC derives its powers from the Opticians
Act 1989. Under Section 13(1) of the Act, the GOC has a duty of
the Council to keep themselves informed of the nature of the instruction
given by any approved training establishment to persons training
as optometrists or dispensing opticians and of the assessments
on the results of which approved qualifications are granted.
For the purposes of their duty under subsection
13 (1) the Council may appoint persons to visit approved training
establishments and to attend at the assessments held by the bodies
which grant approved qualifications.
During its Visits, the GOC looks in detail at
a university's provision for the training of Optometrists and
Dispensing Opticians, bearing in mind the main concern of the
Council is the protection of the public. In order to ensure this
within training programmes, the Council has laid down a minimum
set of conditions under which an Optometry programme must be delivered,
and recognises certain special cost factors which must be met.
These include:
— the necessity of running a University
based clinic which admits real patients from the community;
— a required staff/student ratio of
1:4 in the clinical supervision of these patients;
— a close specification of the curriculum
to be offered and the necessary equipment to deliver a set of
core competencies for each student; and
— there is a necessity that students
receive training in techniques that reflect contemporary standards
of practise, to achieve this, equipment must be available which
represents this level of technology.
There is evidence that the unit of resource
currently available to the Optometry Departments in the UK HE
sector is not sufficient to deliver these conditions satisfactorily.
The GOC has previously made representations for a higher unit
of funding for the final year of training in optometry programmes,
during which the clinical experience is provided within the University's
internal optometry clinics.
December 2006
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