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Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Professional Conduct

In 2009, the College commissioned an independent review of its current Guidance. Although the remit of the review was only to look at the way the Guidance was presented, additional content and sections were recommended where obvious gaps appeared in the new structure. It was recommended that where the College currently publishes advice for our members, this should be included in the Guidance where appropriate. Examples would include the College’s advice on safeguarding children, which is now included in the chapter on examining the younger child (C1). The layout has been changed to make the relevant sections, and the College's advice, easier to find.

The recommendations of the review, together with specific changes to existing Guidance, were considered and agreed by the College’s Membership and Standards Committee and stakeholders comprising the AOP, GOC, FODO and ABDO on 8th July and 14th October 2009, and have been approved by the College Board for publication. Latest Guidance was published August 2010.

Guidance review changes
The review suggested that the chapters be organised in a more logical order, for ease of reference. They are now grouped in sections:
 
Section A:        Ethics and Guiding Principles;
 
Clinical Practice;
Section B:       Routine eye examination
Section C:       Examining different group of patients
Section D:       Examining patients with pathologies or medical conditions
Section E:       Examining patients with vocational needs
Section F:        Dispensing
Section G:       Contact lenses
Section H:       Refractive surgery
Section J:        Additional investigative techniques/procedures
Section K:       Drugs
 
You may download all the Guidelines as a zip file  August 2010 or individually.
 

The latest guidelines were published in August 2010. You can also view the previous guidelines held in the archive.

The College Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Professional Conduct are continually reviewed to ensure they are up to date and represent current good practice.  Any revisions are drafted and then considered by the College’s Membership and Standards Committee (MSC) which meets three times per year.  They then go to the College Board for approval.  The MSC includes observers from the AOP, ABDO, FODO and the GOC.  Members are welcome to suggest changes or improvements to the Guidelines.  These can then be considered by the MSC.  Any suggested changes to the Guidelines should be addressed to Dr Susan Blakeney, Optometric Adviser to the College  optometric.adviser@college-optometrists.org
 

College Members may email the College to receive automatic updates of Guidance changes.

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