Discussions are taking place between the Information Commissioner, ABDO, the AOP and FODO over the requirement for practices to have an approved publication scheme. The representative bodies have submitted a scheme for approval by the Information Commissioner and are awaiting judgement (and have been for some months).
Until these discussions are resolved, members may wish to keep their current arrangements in place. The scheme submitted for approval by optical bodies (which is largely the same as the original) is downloadable using the links below.
In the meantime, there is only one approved scheme. This was written by the Information Commissioner and is inappropriate for opticians' practices. In theory there is a requirement to have a scheme in place and, since there is only one approved scheme, practitioners who are not using that scheme are acting ourtside the law. The AOP believes it to be unlikely that practitioners will be prosecuted if they have a scheme in place and are awaiting approval. Nevertheless, it is important that practitioners understand the position and the potential risk of awaiting approval.
