An AOP explainer on… Ethics and optics

As a result of the enquiries we receive, we have now published a series of new pages on our website that delve into the wide range of ethical issues faced by our members who operate in many different modes of practice, providing both advice and guidance in this area.

To complement these new pages, we have also partnered with Optometry Today to produce a dedicated CPD Video on this topic.

Our members face a range of ethical questions every day, sometimes without even realising it

What is ethics in optics?

Our members face a range of ethical questions every day, sometimes without even realising it. Accepting gifts from suppliers, recommending specific products, referring patients to one place rather than another, accepting a sales bonus, and even deciding how long to spend with a patient: all of these can be considered ethical issues.

While some of these scenarios and the decisions that follow have a clear right or wrong answer, others are harder to decide upon. And, even if decisions are made with the best of intentions, they can still seem unethical to others.

Perception can be as important as reality, and we advise our members to think about their actions and how they might look to others. It is important in these scenarios to consider questions such as: can you demonstrate that your recommendation of a particular product is the best for that patient, even though you might have been incentivised to sell it? And, can you show that your decisions are being influenced by your patients’ interests, rather than your own or those of the business you work for?

Our new suite of advice and guidance pages on our website, supported by OT’s Ethics in optics CPD Video, are designed to help our members navigate their way through these questions.

Perception can be as important as reality, and we advise our members to think about their actions and how they might look to others

Supportive CPD

The CPD Video, accredited for one non-interactive point, is suitable for optometrists and dispensing opticians, and approved against the General Optical Council’s CPD Professionalism, and Leadership and accountability domains. The educational video features a facilitated discussion between three of the AOP’s clinical advisers, including Henry Leonard, Roshni Kanabar and myself. We are all optometrists with a number of years’ experience in High Street practice to draw upon.

The video covers common ethical scenarios encountered in optometric practice, and how practitioners can navigate these safely and professionally. The topics we explore during the 45-minute CPD Video include: balancing commercial pressure with ethical practice; accepting gifts and incentives; performing and charging for clinical investigations, and making referral decisions. We also discuss some of the common queries that we have dealt with, and how to avoid pitfalls.

The AOP’s guidance

The new suite of Ethical optics advice pages can be found on a dedicated landing hub on our website.

From this landing page, members can easily navigate to and locate a range of guidance, which features Q&As and scenarios to support learning. These pages include:

• The GOC’s Standards for individuals
• The GOC’s Standards for businesses
• Ethical dilemmas in optics: a new CPD module to encourage reflection on the reality of ethics in practice
• The law on bribery: our guidance on the Bribery Act
• Inducements: our guidance on inducements to refer patients
• Incentives: the AOP’s view on the use of incentives for individuals to act in certain ways
• Dispensing: the common ethical risks in dispensing
• Domiciliary care: the extra ethical challenges that apply in domiciliary care
• Hospital optics: we discuss the ethical pressures on hospital optometrists
• For students: what you need to know about ethics while you’re studying, and how to learn more.

Members with questions about the guidance can use the AOP’s Community forum to discuss the topic, or email our clinical and regulatory team.