Periodic Review - General Optical Council 2024/25

We have published our performance review report for the General Optical Council. This periodic review covers the period 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025.

Key statistics

• The GOC regulates the practice of optometrists, dispensing opticians, students and optical businesses in the United Kingdom
• 25,787 professionals on the register (as at 31 December 2025) 
• 6,748 students (as at 31 December 2025) 
• 2,936 businesses on the register (as at 31 December 2025)

Key findings and areas for improvement

Standard 3 on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

The GOC continues to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to EDI and performed well against this Standard, building on its positive performance from last year. The GOC addressed some of the gaps we identified last year and we identified no significant gaps or areas of concern this year. In its new guidance on Care of patients in vulnerable circumstances, the GOC adopted a broader definition of vulnerability than regulators have previously used. We welcome this expanded perspective on vulnerability and view it as good practice. We will continue to monitor the GOC’s EDI activity, including work being done by its Unfair Outcomes Working Group and how the GOC continues to use findings from its research to inform its work. 

Quality assurance in education and training

As part of an audit of Standard 9 (prompted by concerns raised by stakeholders in previous years and changes in the GOC’s processes), we asked education providers about their experiences of the GOC’s quality assurance processes. We received reports of slow and overly burdensome processes and concerns about the consistency of decisions. The GOC acknowledged that its performance in some areas is not what it should have been and it had already started making changes to improve consistency and efficiency. This is a transitional period, which may explain some of the feedback, but this is not the first year some of these issues have been reported to us. After balancing all of the evidence, we decided that Standard 9 is met because it is fundamentally about ensuring registrants receive robust education and training, and the evidence does not suggest failings in this regard. However, the Standard also requires processes to be proportionate and it is inherently undesirable for a process to be unnecessarily onerous. We therefore consider that improvement of this aspect is necessary and we will continue to monitor the GOC’s performance in this area and the impact of the changes it is making.

Fitness to Practise investigations

We audited a sample of cases closed by the GOC during the review period to help us evaluate different aspects of the GOC’s fitness to practise function, including its closure decisions and risk management. Our findings were mixed. Most cases were progressed without delay and were adequately investigated. And in most cases, the closure decision was reasonable and risks were identified and appropriately managed. However, we identified a number of areas for improvement:

• Some of the decisions to close cases at triage were premature or inappropriate.
• Risk assessments were not always completed when they should have been and some of them were case summaries rather than an analysis of case-specific risks.
• Parties were not always updated during the investigation.
• The GOC’s management controls do not appear to have identified or rectified the issues our audit identified.

Most of the premature or inappropriate case closures were on cases about low-level concerns that could have reasonably been managed locally. And because most investigations were adequate and prompt, with risks being managed appropriately and we saw examples of the GOC supporting parties with sensitive case handling, we decided that the GOC met all of the Fitness to Practise Standards. However, it is clear that improvements are needed. The GOC has implemented an action plan in response to our audit findings and we will be monitoring for evidence of its impact and improvements in the areas we have highlighted.