Raising concerns about an education qualification

If you need to raise a concern(s) about an existing General Optical Council (GOC) approved qualification (including qualifications currently applying for GOC approval), you can do so using the following guidance. Please note that we can only consider concerns relating to qualifications that are GOC approved or currently seeking approval. To find a list of education providers who currently offer qualifications with, or are in the process of gaining, GOC approval, you can review the what to study and where webpage.

Who can raise a concern? 

Anyone can raise concerns to us, and we take all concerns seriously.   

Before you contact us   

In the first instance, you should raise your concern(s) with the education provider directly, as this gives them a chance to consider your concern(s) and to address them. If the provider is unable to resolve or adequately respond to your concern, you should escalate this using their formal complaints process. 

It is unlikely that we will be able to consider your concern(s) unless you have exhausted the provider’s complaints process prior to approaching us. However, if you believe there to be an immediate threat to patient or public safety or illegal practice taking place, immediate referral might be necessary in order for us to consider the complaint. 
  
Please note: as the regulator, the GOC can only consider concerns which fall within its statutory remit (including those related to compliance with our education and training requirements). Therefore, the GOC is unable to get involved in individual complaints, examples where this might be the case include but are not limited to: 

  • Admissions and/or progression decisions. 

  • Placement/learning in practice decisions and/or the obtainment of individual placements. 

  • Assessment results and appeals. 

  • The application of reasonable adjustments. 

  • Qualification fees and/or expenses. 

These types of concerns should be directed to the education provider in the first instance, who will be able to explain internal and external appeal mechanisms. We are unable to hear appeals nor direct an education provider to change the outcome of their decisions.   

How we will manage your concern 

The concern will be sent to the GOC’s Education department ([email protected]). Once received, one of the team will conduct an initial triage to ensure that it falls within the statutory remit of the regulator after which the complainant will be notified along with an outline of the next steps, or guidance on where to direct complaints that do not fall within our remit.  

The team will consider the concern in relation to the standards we expect education providers to meet and ask the education provider for its response to the issue(s) raised (if required).  

Please note, to enable an education provider to respond, at this stage we may need to share details of the concern with them, this may result in anonymity being compromised, if this is the case we will consult with you before proceeding. You may also wish to raise the concern anonymously.    

For any concerns identified within the regulatory remit, the department aims to provide an update to the complainant within 30 working days. 

We may not always be able to provide the outcome or answer you want, but we do want to learn from your experience of raising a concern with us and we’ll use your feedback to improve our services.    

We appreciate that raising a concern may be daunting. Please see our ‘speaking up’ guidance to help you consider options when speaking up, or when thinking of doing so. If you need support while we look into your concern, there are organisations that can help you, such as MIND , as well as support from student unions and professional membership bodies.    

Outcomes  

If we consider that our standards are potentially not being met by the education provider, we will investigate further using our quality assurance and enhancement method (QAEM) activities. If we decide not to investigate, we’ll let you know and will include an explanation.   

There are a number of options available to us, depending on the outcomes and level of risk. Below are a few examples we can apply to an approved qualification or qualification going through the approval process:   

  • Require that a stage (or stages) of the application process is repeated – for education providers currently going through the application process, they can be asked to repeat a stage (or stages) of the process particularly for applications stratified as medium or higher risk, until there is confidence the outcomes and standards are on course to be met. 

  • Halt recruitment to the qualification – education providers can be asked to halt recruitment.  

  • Set conditions – these are actions which the provider must meet to maintain GOC qualification approval.  

  • Open a risk-based review or serious concerns review – these processes take a closer look at why and how the qualification is not meeting our standards and allows us to have closer oversight of the provider. Should a provider continue to not meet our standards, nor make the required improvements, we may decide to withdraw our approval of the qualification.   

Data and information 

To fulfil our statutory duties under the Opticians Act 1989, we need to process personal information. This includes disclosing, sharing and publishing personal information when it is in the public interest to do so. For example, providing sufficient information for an education provider to respond to a concern.   

We do this with careful consideration of our information responsibilities, under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA), the Human Rights Act (HRA) and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), to ensure that our use of personal data is lawful, properly controlled and that an individual's rights are respected.  

For more information on how we use your data, see the data and freedom of information at the GOC webpage. 

If a concern or complaint is raised anonymously, we will consider if we are able to investigate based on the information available and will try to respond where possible.  

Contact us with your complaint or concern 

You can raise a complaint or concern with us using the form below. If you wish to receive a response and/or details regarding our triage, please provide us with details of how to contact you when completing the complaints or concerns form.  

Please be assured that all concerns raised are handled sensitively, however, you have the option to remain fully anonymous should you wish to. Unfortunately, if you choose to remain anonymous this will mean that we will not be able to provide a response or any updates. Alternatively, you can also choose to remain anonymous to those other than GOC staff which will allow us to keep you updated with our investigations.  

If we can make any reasonable adjustments to enable you to raise a complaint or concern, please let us know on [email protected] or 020 7580 3898.   

Raise a concern about an education programme