General Optical Council

GOC's proposals for revalidation

We have completed the first stage of our consultation on draft proposals for a revalidation scheme for opticians. The results of this consultation will be used to formulate more detailed proposals which will also be subject to consultation.

Read the full consultation document and draft revalidation proposals
 

A broad outline of our proposals follows:

Revalidation will apply to all registrants who are active in clinical practice; those on the register but not practising will not be required to be revalidated.

How it will work

We anticipate using an online system, similar to the one used for CET, to support the revalidation process.

Risk profiling

We intend to undertake risk profiling of our registrants to inform the revalidation scheme which will be evidence-based wherever possible. Registrants will be asked to provide details of their scope and context of practice.

Competencies

Registrants will be revalidated against entry-level competencies or, where speciality registration is held, the competencies required for entry into a specialty .

Evidence

The greater the risk to patients of 'competency failure', taking into account the contextual factors of a registrant's practice, the more robust will be the evidence-base required to satisfy the GOC that competency has been maintained.

The cost of undertaking remedial action to meet such conditions will be met by the registrant.

Timescales

A full implementation plan will be published later in the year.  We plan to start revalidating registrants from the beginning of the 2013-15 CET cycle.  Our full response to the report is available to download below.

Acrobat Reader icon GOC response to NMRWG report