GOC encourages ESR responses with three weeks to go

The General Optical Council (GOC) is encouraging its stakeholders to influence the future education and training of the professions by responding to its Education Strategic Review (ESR) consultation by the 25 February deadline.

GOC Interim Director of Education Dr Subo Shanmuganathan said, “We’re determined to make sure that optical education is fit for the future and supports and enables the multi-skilled workforce essential to meet patient needs. The consultation is the chance for all stakeholders to let us know what they think and to influence the future of education and training for the professions. I encourage everyone with an interest to reply by the 25 February deadline.”

The consultation encompasses new draft standards for education providers and learning outcomes for students – designed to enable education providers to innovate and respond more quickly as the sector changes, while taking into account the need for a greater focus on clinical training, leadership, and the reality of increased multi-disciplinary work.

We want to ensure that education providers – recognising that they may wish to work in partnership with others – give students the best possible learning and support opportunities throughout their education, training and assessment up until the point where they are eligible to enter the GOC qualified register.

The GOC has also responded to some responses it has already received as part of the consultation:

Subo added, “We understand that there is some concern about the potential impact of our proposals on the status of current qualifications. In particular, it is important to understand when responding that the current baseline qualification level for an ophthalmic dispensing qualification is level 5 and we are not proposing any change to this minimum requirement.

“What we want to do is give providers the flexibility they need to train registrants for the roles of the future so we look forward to hearing how our registrants’ and other healthcare professionals’ scopes of practice are likely to change.

“We know there is also a strong interest in how students will be assessed in future and we will ensure that patient safety is at the heart of whatever approach we take, with fair and consistent outcomes for all students absolutely vital.”

The consultation is available to view and respond to on the GOC’s Consultation Hub at http://consultation.optical.org