Reviewing our standards

Standards Manager Rebecca Chamberlain explains how registrants and other stakeholders can contribute to our Standards Review 

As part of our statutory duty to protect public safety and maintain public confidence, we are launching a Standards Review. The aim of the Review is to evaluate and update our existing standards of practice for optical professionals to ensure they are fit for purpose, and reflect the current context within which registrants practice, students are trained, and businesses operate. 

The Standards Review will focus on the Standards of Practice for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians and the Standards for Optical Students. Any changes to these standards will be reflected in amendments to the Standards for Optical Businesses where necessary. 

We want to hear from you 

It is important that we hear from everyone who is impacted by our standards, so we will be undertaking several pieces of work to ensure the voices of stakeholders, including professionals, patients and the public, are heard. 

We will kick off this piece of work with a series of stakeholder conversations, so that we can hear your views and opinions on the development of the standards. The conversations will be held between May and July 2023, and will address topics such as social media and online conduct, maintaining professional boundaries, leadership and delegation and supervision. The conversations will be facilitated via online focus groups, online webinars with Q&A, and social media. 

How to take part 

The first two conversations will take place on Microsoft Teams, and are themed around: 

• 11 May 2023 - Social media and online conduct, which will look at the benefits and challenges of using social media and things to consider when using online tools  
• 24 May 2023 - Supervision and delegation, which will consider professional responsibilities when supervising or delegating tasks to colleagues 

We will be holding two sessions on each day, one aimed at professional bodies and representative organisations (between 1pm and 3pm) and one aimed at registrants (6pm to 8pm).  

We want to hear from as many registrants as possible, but we also want to make sure that there is a range of voices in the room. So, if you are a registrant and want to sign up, please email standards@optical.org with the following information: 

• The topic you want to discuss (social media and online conduct or supervision and delegation); 
• Whether you are a dispensing optician or an optometrist; 
• How long you have been practising or if you are a student. 

We will do our best to accommodate as many registrants as possible in the evening sessions, whilst also ensuring that we can hear from registrants from both professions at all stages of their careers.  

Also email us if you are interested in talking about these topics but can’t attend on these dates. If we have enough interest we will offer other dates or make a recording available afterwards.  

Dates for the subsequent conversations will follow and will be shared on social media and in our newsletter.  

In addition, we will commission some public and patient research, which will be undertaken during the summer and will be reviewed alongside our stakeholder conversations to inform the development of draft standards. 

We will consult on our standards in early 2024, so you will have another change to influence our standards are they develop. These conversations are an opportunity for you to come together now with other registrants to have thoughtful and detailed conversations on standards topics.  

For the Standards Review to be a success, we need as much engagement as possible from all stakeholders. Please watch out for further updates via our website, e-mail communications and social media platforms.