The General Optical Council (GOC) has today launched a consultation on new standards for optical businesses.
The consultation seeks views from patients, optometrists and dispensing opticians, employers and other stakeholders on a new set of standards to replace the GOC’s Code of Conduct for Businesses from April 2019.
The draft standards are designed to reflect changes in optical and wider healthcare practice over the last few years, including accounting for the increased prevalence of multidisciplinary working as the optical sector evolves. They will also reflect recent changes to the GOC’s individual standards such as the inclusion of the duty of candour and the need to obtain valid consent.
Alistair Bridge, GOC Director of Strategy, said, “To get these new business standards right it is vital that we hear from patients and the public as well as a wide range of stakeholders within the optical professions.
“We particularly want to hear from people about how responsibilities should be shared between individual professionals and the businesses they work for, about where individuals might require further support and about any difficulties that businesses might face in meeting the new standards.”
To make it easier to reply, this will be the first consultation that the GOC runs using its new online consultation hub at https://consultation.optical.org, the new online home for all GOC consultation activities.
Alistair Bridge added, “The new platform will provide a user-friendly interface for respondents to read the required information and respond simply and quickly online – not just on this business standards consultation but on all of our future consultations. It’s vital that we hear a wide range of views and this is designed to make that as easy as possible.”
The consultation opened today and will close on 30 August 2018. The GOC will analyse the feedback before its Council signs off the final version in November and the new Standards take effect from 1 April 2019.