GOC reviewing commercial practises

Council members of the General Optical Council (GOC) have approved the business case for a thematic review into commercial practises and patient safety.

From its surveys, including the 2025 Registrant Workforce and Perceptions Survey, and wider engagement, the regulator said that “many registrants and other stakeholders have indicated concern about the influence of some commercial practices on the ability to deliver safe patient care”.

These, according to the GOC, included:

• Overbooking/ghost clinics (typically where a business double books patients in a clinic, to mitigate against lost appointments due to patients that don’t attend, which may result in rushed or reduced appointment times).
• Short sight testing times
• Commercial targets and incentives (such as selling products that are financially beneficial to the business or that patients may not clinically require).
• Lack of transparency around costs and eligibility for NHS financial support
• Refusal to treat young children, in part for commercial reasons

The GOC stated that its aim in carrying out the review was to “understand the nature and extent of these practises and their impacts, and to identify any interventions that the GOC and the wider eyecare sector can take to help mitigate against this”.

It intends to gather information between September 2025 and March 2026 through internal and commissioned research, as well as stakeholder engagement. This will include a series of LinkedIn conversations with registrants.

At the conclusion of the review, the GOC will publish a report summarising its key findings and recommendations.