Primary care organisations e.g. Primary Care Trusts and their equivalents, have a wide variety of tasks to perform. To assist them in this they may choose to employ individuals, usually clinicians, with specialist knowledge. The most common have traditionally been medical advisers and nursing advisers, but pharmaceutical, dental and optometric advisers are also employed.
The AOP produced advice on the value of optometric advisers to the local healthcare community and the kind of responsibilities they are expected to undertake. The advice examined the role of the optometric adviser with regard to the LOC/AOC and how best the relationship between the two could be managed. It also included a model letter for LOCs/AOCs to use when pressing for the appointment of optometric advisers and a checklist for individual optometrists who were considering taking on the role of an optometric adviser. This advice can be viewed in pdf format at the end of the page. This advice is currently being updated and an updated version will be available soon.
There is a national forum of optometris advisers called the Optometric Advisers Group (OAG). This group arranges for optometric advisers to meet and to exchange ideas and experiences. This is entirely independent of the AOP, but the guidance that we are currently updating was produced with input from members of the Optometric Advisers Group.
