Recently published statements during the COVID-19 emergency

The GOC recently published two statements during the COVID-19 emergency. A brief synopsis on both statements as well as links to the full documents are below.

Statement on education quality assurance activity during the COVID-19 emergency

In response to queries from education providers, we’ve published a statement which outlines how our quality assurance activity of GOC-approved education will change during the COVID-19 emergency.

The statement covers the following areas:

• The health of patients, students and staff
• Changes to our education quality assurance activity
• Notification of events and changes to manage teaching and assessment of approved qualifications
• How we will prioritise quality assurance visits
• Publication of our combined Quality Assurance handbook
• Changes to annual monitoring and reporting (AMR)

To read the statement in full, visit our dedicated COVID-19 page. If you have any questions, please contact the Education team at education@optical.org.

Statement on approach to service documents and hearings during the COVID-19 emergency

In response to questions from our registrants and the public, we have published a statement which outlines our approach in fitness to practise for the service of documents and facilitating hearings.

This statement covers the following areas:

• How we will approach investigations and hearings during this emergency period and any adaptations to our processes
• How we are keeping our overarching objective – the protection of the public – at the forefront of our efforts to continue maintaining our functions
• Moving to a process of serving all notifications, notices and documents electronically via our secure email system
• Requiring all registrants to ensure that their contact details are up to date
• Virtual hearings will replace physical hearings where possible and attendees are outlined
• Processes for virtual hearings to support hearings standards and regulations

To read the statement in full, visit our dedicated COVID-19 page If you have any questions, please contact the Hearings team at hearings@optical.org