GOC statement on University of Portsmouth Masters of Optometry programme

The General Optical Council (GOC) has issued notice of their intention to withdraw provisional approval for the University of Portsmouth’s Masters of Optometry programme.

In September 2019 the GOC made the decision to impose a condition to suspend the recruitment of new students to the optometry programme. This was to enable the University to focus their resources on addressing its outstanding concerns.

Following this decision, the GOC conducted a quality assurance visit in November 2019 and found that the concerns had not been sufficiently rectified. Following consideration of the visit report on 5 December 2019, the GOC Council decided to give notice of its intention to withdraw provisional approval for the MOptom programme. The University now has one month to appeal this decision.

The University is working on a range of contingency options for the students and the GOC is in regular communication with the University and the Office for Students.

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