SPOKE: Sector Partnership for Optical Knowledge and Education

This guidance has been developed in consultation with a wide range of sector stakeholders. It is not intended to be prescriptive but reflects the current consensus on the characteristics of good practice in the supervision of pre-registration clinical and experiential learning. It is for providers to determine, and justify, what represents safe and effective supervision for learners to meet the expectations of the General Optical Council (GOC).

All learners must be registered with the General Optical Council (GOC) whilst enrolled on GOC-approved optical qualifications and must be supervised by full registrants whilst undertaking patient-facing activities, commonly termed “supervised practice,” when conducted in an ophthalmic workplace.

This is a legal requirement enshrined in Standard 9 of the General Optical Council’s Standards of Practice for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians. Student registrants are also required to ensure that they know who is supervising any activity and ensure that they are aware and available when it is taking place, as described in standard 8 of the General Optical Council’s Standards of Practice for Optical Students.

For qualifications starting prior to 2023, the GOC’s expectations relating to supervisors were described in the qualification handbooks and the Supervision Handbook. These were supplemented by the College of Optometrists and the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) qualification regulations and guidance. With the publication of the GOC Education and Training Requirements in 2021, all of these were superseded, and the responsibility for determining and overseeing supervision arrangements was formally devolved to ETR qualification providers. To support consistency across the sector, Supervision Guidance relating to patient- facing learning of preregistration optometrists and dispensing opticians was developed and published by the SPOKE Knowledge Hub in 2023. This guidance was reviewed in 2026 by sector representatives in the light of the need for agreement on a benchmarking approach for course team staff: student ratios, and to include consideration of the supervisory needs of trainees undertaking specialist registerable qualifications (contact lens (CL), additional supply (AS), supplementary prescribing (SP) and independent prescribing (IP)). It was agreed that the supervision of trainee Contact Lens Opticians should follow the original SPOKE project 4 Supervision Guidance. However, AS, SP and IP supervision utilises the Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP) framework developed by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Accordingly, guidance for AS, SP and IP supervision was developed and is provided below.