Hearings

This section contains information about our fitness to practise hearings process. If the Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee considers an allegation against a registrant to be serious, a full hearing takes place to judge whether the registrant’s fitness to practise is impaired.

Hearings panel members are impartial and independent of the Council.

The way in which hearing dates are set is described in the  Guidance for Case Management Meetings  document.

 

IMPORTANT COVID-19 UPDATE

Please note that due to the current COVID-19 emergency and in line with government directions, public and private hearings are not currently being held at our London office.

Where possible, we will hold remote virtual hearings either by teleconference, video-link or on the papers.

From 19 November, where required we will be undertaking some physical hearing days at our London office. We have reviewed the latest guidance from Government regarding new national restrictions, and from 5 November we will facilitate, where required, physical hearings with new measurements in place.

 

We have published new guidance to support paricipants attending physical hearing during the COVID-19 emergency.

Guidance Note for Hearings - 10 Old Bailey

Keeping everyone safe

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Rule 25(1) requires that substantive hearings must be held in public. Should you wish to observe any of our public hearings please contact the hearings team who will notify you whether the hearing is planned to take place in person or via a remote virtual link – hearings@optical.org

 

Use the links below to:

View notices of future hearings
Look at outcomes of past hearings 
Find out how the hearings process works.