Supervision Guidance

Routes to Registration

There are currently four registerable qualifications under the purview of the General Optical Council(GOC), two initial qualifications (optometry (OO) and ophthalmic dispensing (DO)) and two specialist qualifications - those for Contact Lens Opticians (CLO) and for Independent Prescribing Optometrists (IP).

The Education and Training Requirements (ETR) have had the most significant impact on qualifications that formerly relied on more than one provider (OO, DO, IP), by requiring provision to be fully integrated and offered by a single education provider.

However, the move from a competency-based framework to outcomes, standard set using Miller’s pyramid, has also invoked significant reshaping of learning and assessment strategies, including the delivery and support for “patient-facing” learning. Accordingly, whilst the roles undertaken by qualified registrants have not radically changed overnight, the ways in which they demonstrate and document that they have absorbed and achieved the knowledge, skills and behaviours required have evolved and may vary between providers.

Each qualification requires defined periods of patient-facing learning- 48 weeks for DO and OO, 225 hours for CLO, and 90 hours for IP. Much of this must be supervised practice with the remainder being delivered through a variety of mechanisms, including computer simulation, peer and simulated patient experience, and provider clinics.

The current ETR provide landscape is provided below, by qualification route.

All current providers now offer a master’s degree that integrates at least 48 weeks of patient-facing learning.

As of Spring 2026 there were fifteen fully approved providers across the UK, plus two advertising on UCAS whilst undergoing GOC provider approval. Of these, all but three are integrating the College of Optometrists’ Clinical Learning in Practice (CLiP) programme, which facilitates recruitment of students by practices from across the UK, delivers forty-four of the required forty-eight weeks of experience, and assesses the majority of the final outcomes required for qualification. The University of Manchester delivers the entirety of its MSci Optometry, building on its experience as the only provider other than the College approved to deliver GOC Stage 2 of optometry qualifications under the previous “Handbook” route. Finally, the Scottish Government has funded NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to deliver a “Foundation Training Year” (FTY) integrated into the courses provided by Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of the Highlands and Islands. Scottish courses will also include IP specialist qualifications as part of the five-year route.

As of Spring 2026, four approved providers including ABDO, who are working in collaboration with a further four education centres, offer their ETR Level 6/10 (bachelor’s degree level) qualifications. Three providers offer a degree qualification and ABDO, with the education centres, offer a degree level qualification. In addition, ABDO, the education centres and one additional provider are registered to offer the degree level dispensing optician apprenticeship. All ophthalmic dispensing qualifications support the integration of 48 weeks of patient facing learning.

ABDO are the only provider of this specialist course, which is undertaken whilst working in practice. Since the qualification falls within the scope of practice of optometrists, most learners have ready access to suitably qualified supervisors for their 225 hours of experience.

There are six providers of IP, two of whom have started delivery of their ETR courses. Again, the GOC’s shift to a single provider model has significantly impacted course design, although the most notable change is the removal of a requirement for an ophthalmologist to oversee the clinical educational experience, enabled by a change in the law in 2019. Instead, the   requirements for supervision and qualification are now largely aligned with non-medical prescribing in other professions – following the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's “Designated Prescribing Practitioner” (DPP) competency framework.  A notable exception is that the GOC does not stipulate, in terms of years, the amount of experience required to undertake the DPP role. Equally, the RPS framework does not foresee experience taking place across multiple settings, with a distinction between “task supervisors” whose primary role is patient safety, and the full DPP role which encompasses education. 

At the current time, optometry IP placement experience typically remains learner sourced and is frequently obtained via hospital eye services, often at a cost to the learner. Devolved nations provision in this area is better supported than in England, as a consequence of government initiatives to deliver enhanced community services (thereby increasing the opportunities for learning in “Teach and Treat” or similar settings) and also to support the associated educational experience. It is of note that Scotland has extended this to fund NES to support and deliver IP experience as part of the new undergraduate degrees.