The AOP's Sight Test Resource Pack is a practical guide for practitioners wishing to implement a system of offering patients additional services for supplementary fees. This includes the AOP's advice on the sight test as well as sample patient leaflets and a marketing plan for the introduction of such a system.
For further information, please contact Richard Carswell at the AOP by emailing richardcarswell@aop.org.uk
Click on the links below to access pdf versions of the document, or email davidcraig@aop.org.uk if you would like a hard copy sent to you.
Common Law Duty of Care
Alongside the view of the duties of the practitioner given by the GOS Terms of Service (which are essentially the contract to provide GOS) and by the 1989 eye examination regulations, is the common law duty of care. Optometrists should be aware that they can not escape their common law responsibilities by only carrying out the sight test as described, if the duty of care, in a particular set of circumstances, indicates that more is required. Another way of expressing this is to talk of the ‘peer view’. What would your colleagues do in similar circumstances?
The duty of care requires the optometrist to exercise reasonable skill and care on the patient’s behalf. It broadly means that each practitioner should provide the same standard of care as that offered in a similar set of circumstances by a reasonably competent optometrist possessing up to date skills.
The standard of care is a moving target, which develops as the profession’s knowledge and skill develop. It is also redefined, from time-to-time, when practitioners are sued for professional negligence and/or breach of statutory duty. Should an optometrist claim to be an expert in a particular field, then the standard, which he or she should display, should be that of the reasonable expert.
If practitioners are sued for breach of this duty, the Courts will consider the particular circumstances of the case. Evidence will be taken as to what standard of care the patient could reasonably have expected. Reference will be made to the standard of the profession at the time the professional skills were exercised and the steps, which a reasonably competent optometrist should have taken, in all the circumstances of the case. Reference can be made to such yardsticks as the College Guidance, but the College Guidance alone is not the defining standard. The crucial test is, what is the standard actually being exercised today in practice by your peers?
The profession should also note that it currently holds itself out to be more competent in a far wider clinical context than, say, when the regulations were made.
The duty of care extends to all the areas in which the profession holds itself out as providing a competent service. In short the duty of care could be held to require the performance of more than the sight test in respect of a particular patient. We advise the profession to note also that the test of what the reasonably competent practitioner should do, as an objective test applied by the Courts, could override the profession’s own view. Nevertheless, the AOP will always use the ‘peer view’ to defend practitioners faced with malpractice claims.
