College of Optometrists Guidance for Professional Practice Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2 About the Guidance .............................................................................................................. 2 GOC’s Standards of Practice for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians .......................... 33 Terminology ......................................................................................................................... 33 How the Guidance is organised ........................................................................................... 33 Further support for members ............................................................................................. 55 If you need a different format ............................................................................................. 55 When the Guidance will be updated ................................................................................... 55 Knowledge, skills and performance ................................................................ 66 Develop and maintain knowledge and skills ........................................................................... 66 Patient records ........................................................................................................................ 99 The routine eye examination (‘sight test’) .......................................................................... 2020 The needs led examination ................................................................................................. 2626 Examining patients who present as an emergency ............................................................. 2828 Examining patients with a disability .................................................................................... 3131 Assessing and managing patients with low vision .............................................................. 3636 Examining patients with learning disabilities ...................................................................... 4343 Examining patients with autism ......................................................................................... 5050 Examining patients with specific learning difficulties ......................................................... 5252 Examining patients with dementia or other acquired cognitive impairment ..................... 5555 The domiciliary eye examination (‘sight test’) .................................................................... 6161 Examining younger children ................................................................................................ 6565 Examining patients with diabetes mellitus ......................................................................... 7070 Examining and managing patients with an anomaly of binocular vision ............................ 7878 Examining patients who present with flashes and floaters ................................................ 8981 Examining patients who drive ............................................................................................. 9284 1 College of Optometrists Examining patients who work with display screen equipment or computers .................... 9789 Prescribing spectacles ....................................................................................................... 10193 Sale and supply of spectacles ............................................................................................ 10597 Contact lens equipment and facilities ............................................................................. 110102 Fitting contact lenses ....................................................................................................... 112104 Contact lens specification ................................................................................................ 118110 Contact lens supply ......................................................................................................... 122114 Contact lens check‐ups .................................................................................................... 128120 Contact lenses for overnight wear .................................................................................. 131123 Use and supply of drugs or medicines in optometric practice ........................................ 134126 Introduction About the Guidance This guidance is the College’s view of good practice and sets out what is expected of optometrists. It is relevant to you, whether you are an owner practitioner, partner, employee, locum, or pre-registration optometrist, and is useful to students learning about what professionalism means. It applies in all work environments, including multiples, independent practice and hospital, and is unrelated to whether or not the services described are funded by the NHS or privately. The Guidance does not change what you must do under the law. What you should in each situation will depend on good practice as well as what you are required to do by the law and your contract. College GuidanceIt helps you to ensure that you put your patients’ interests first, and work in partnership with them so they receive the best possible care. Remember that the different chapters do not exist in isolation. The guidance in the sections on Safety and quality, Communication, partnership and teamwork, and Maintaining trust are all there to underpin the advice given in the Knowledge, skills and performance section. So, when consulting the guidance, you may, for example, want to read the chapter Examining patients with learning disabilities together with the chapter Consent, or the chapter The routine eye examination (‘sight test’) with the chapter Partnership with patients. There are also some patients who fall into more than one category, for example, patients with diabetes or learning disabilities who need a domiciliary eye examination. 2 College of Optometrists The Gguidance is there to support you in making the right clinical decisions. You may decide that specific circumstances mean that, in your professional judgement, you need to take a different course of action. This is fine as long as you can justify that action. GOC’s Standards of Practice for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians The Guidance is based on the GOC’s Standards and is there to support you in putting those standards into practice. You should familiarise yourself with the Standards, and think about how our guidance and the Standards interrelate. For example, you should always recognise and work within your limits of competence and keep your knowledge and skills up to date. Similarly, while the Standard Communicate effectively with your patients obviously matches our section Communication, partnership and teamwork, it also applies, together with all other patient related Standards, to the Knowledge, skills and performance section of our Guidance. Terminology We use: must: where you have a legal or regulatory obligation to follow the guidance should: where we would normally expect you to follow that course of action. If your professional judgement leads you to take a different action, you must be able to justify that action. How the Guidance is organised The Guidance is organised in four sections: A. Knowledge, skills and performance B. Safety and quality C. Communication, partnership and teamwork D. Maintaining trust. Within each section of the Guidance are chapters which include: Key points Detailed topic information 3 College of Optometrists Useful information and links References. There is a contents page at the front and an index at the back. The search facility on the website will also help you find the guidance you need. Along with the Optometrists’ Formulary, Clinical Management Guidelines and Ethical Scenarios, the Guidance is also available on the College app for College members. CPD You can use our online ethical scenarios, which are designed to help you apply the Guidance to your everyday practice. See college- Field Code Changed optometrists.org/guidance/ethical-scenarios.html. These are also available on the College app. And you can use peer discussion case studies with your colleagues to discuss how you should approach different situations that could occur in your daily practice. See: college-optometrists.org/cpd-and-cet/online-learning/peer- Field Code Changed discussion-and-peer-review.html We have a range of online learning resources available, including webinars as well as courses on glaucoma, AMDa DOCET produces material for all registered optometrists. This includes live CET, video and audio libraries of courses on many different topics and peer discussion material. See: docet.info Higher qualifications College higher qualifications are available in contact lens practice, glaucoma, low vision, medical retina and paediatric eye care. See: college- optometrists.org/cpd-and-cet/training-and-qualifications/higher- qualifications.html Library services All College members have free access to certain databases including British Standards online via the College library. See: college-optometrists.org/the- college/library-and-information-services/online-databases-and-reports.html. In addition we provide topic updates on binocular vision eye diseases low vision, and primary care optometry 4 College of Optometrists See: college-optometrists.org/the-college/library-and-information- services.html Further support for members