Optical workforce share their views

The General Optical Council (GOC) has published the findings from its 2025 Workforce and Perceptions Survey, which aims to learn more about registrants’ work experiences, including views on their job satisfaction and working conditions.

As previously reported, this year’s GOC research has indicated that registrants experiencing time or commercial pressures were more likely to report difficulties in providing patients with the sufficient level of care they need.

The percentage of respondents who reported experiencing the following practises ‘sometimes’ or ‘frequently’ during the last 12 months, was:

• Forty-eight per cent of optometrist respondents said they found the standard time allocated to conduct a sight test insufficient to provide safe patient care
• Thirty-eight per cent said they felt pressure to see a high number of patients each day impacting their ability to provide safe patient care
• Thirty-three per cent said they felt under pressure to sell certain types of spectacles or contact lenses that would earn more money for the business
• Thirty per cent said they had felt under pressure to meet commercial targets at the expense of patient care
• Twenty-two per cent said they have felt under pressure to sell a product or provide a service which they considered was not needed by the patient

Steve Brooker, GOC director of regulatory strategy, said: “This year’s research highlights the continuing challenges that registrants face in daily clinical practice due to features of their working environment and the troubling impact this has on their well-being and on their ability to provide safe patient care.

“To understand some of the challenges in more detail, in this year’s survey, we introduced new questions to understand the potential impacts of time and commercial pressures at work. It’s concerning how many registrants reported these pressures occurring sometimes or frequently. These registrants were more likely to report finding it difficult to provide patients with the sufficient level of care they need, suggesting a link between these pressures and patient safety.

“We are launching a thematic review on commercial practices and patient safety to better understand how we can support registrants and protect the public. We want to hear directly from registrants about their views and experiences, so will be running a series of conversations on LinkedIn on this topic.”

The survey took place between March and May 2025 and received a total of 3,798 responses, representing a 12 per cent response rate.

View the full research report.