General Optical Council (GOC)

The General Optical Council are an organisation which regulates optical professionals in the United Kingdom. They set standards, hold a register, quality assure education and investigate complaints.

They regulate:

Optometrists
Dispensing opticians
Student opticians
Optical businesses.

How we oversee the General Optical Council

We review the performance of the General Optical Council each year. We give our report to Parliament and publish our report on our website. We also review every decision made by the regulator's final fitness to practise panels. We include recent cases on this page. See more cases.

We have our latest Performance Review for the General Optical Council and you can also read a commentary that the General Optical Council has decided to provide setting out its disagreement with one aspect of the performance review report.

Search GOC register

Latest Performance Reviews

Performance Review - GOC 2015/16

In our latest review of the General Optical Council’s performance, we are pleased to see an improvement – with the GOC meeting 22 out of 24 of our Standards of Good Regulation

Commentary from the GOC

You can also read a commentary that the General Optical Council has decided to provide setting out its disagreement with one aspect of the performance review report.

Read a summary

See our two-page snapshot which gives an at a glance summary of what we found in our performance review.

Recent cases

This page is being updated. Please contact us if you would like information about a particular case.

Find other cases here