This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
UK optometrists given prescriptive authority
The Department of Health in the United Kingdom has granted optometric specialists the independent authority to prescribe medications, provided they undergo appropriate training.
The recent move has widened the scope of practice for clinicians all over the United Kingdom and will allow them to become fully autonomous “like their cousins across the pond,” optometrists there said.
“There will be no restriction on the drugs that an independently prescribing optometrist will be able to prescribe, whether for topical or systemic administration,” Roger Buckley, chairman of the British General Optical Council (GOC) and professor of ocular medicine in the department of Optometry and Ophthalmic Dispensing of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England, told Primary Care Optometry News in an interview. “However, such optometrists will only be able to prescribe for ocular conditions affecting the eye and adnexa and within the recognized area of their own expertise and competence.”
The GOC has more than 22,000 registered members, including 11,291 optometrists.
Training requirements
Optometrists who wish to prescribe therapeutics will have to undergo several hours of GOC-approved training and enter their specialty in the GOC register. The requirements for training and continuing education are still being decided upon, Prof. Buckley said.
“Training is a combination of didactic material and sessional attendance at a primary eye unit,” explained Nicholas Rumney, MScOptom, managing director of a large independent practice in Hereford, England.
Two prescribing specialties
The U.K. optometrists may train and register in two prescribing specialties. Additional Supply specialists can write orders for and supply in an emergency a range of drugs in addition to the drugs a normal optometrist can prescribe now. The currently approved drugs include all lubricants except acetylcysteine, all nonsteroidal anti-allergy medications except Opatanol (olopatadine HCl 0.1% ophthalmic solution, Alcon) and two antibiotics, Fucithalmic (fusidic acid 1%, Leo Pharmaceutical) and chloramphenicol. Additional Supply specialists add acetylycysteine, Opatanol and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as Acular (ketorolac tromethamine ophthalmic solution 0.5%, Allergan) and pilocarpine.
“It is envisaged that this opens the door to more extensive glaucoma comanagement schemes, as well as recognizing the reality of present optometric comanagement,” Dr. Rumney said.
Registrants with the Supplementary Prescribing specialty are qualified to manage a patient’s clinical condition and prescribe medicines according to a clinical management plan set up in conjunction with an independent prescriber, such as a general practitioner or ophthalmologist, the rules said.
Dr. Rumney told PCON that although therapeutic training at present is a postgraduate activity, one future bottleneck might be that “no school of optometry has the course funding or infrastructure to graduate therapeutically trained optometrists yet. The education wing of the British government does not fund optometry as a clinical discipline,” he said.
Prof. Buckley said the prescribing powers could change the way the public perceives eye care professionals and help them better deliver eye care services.
“Optometrists are highly qualified clinicians, but they remain a largely untapped resource in health care, with the capacity to provide high quality, convenient services for patients with a wide range of common and long-term eye conditions,” he said.
U.S. response
Optometrists in the United States lauded the new U.K. rules, saying they allow the profession to provide better for patients.
“We applaud the General Optical Council and the U.K. Department of Health for expanding the types of care optometrists in the U.K. can provide to their patients,” Kevin L. Alexander, OD, PhD, president of the American Optometric Association, said in a prepared statement on behalf of the AOA. “With the expansion of prescriptive authority, optometrists are able to provide patients with more immediate relief for their conditions. Therefore, they can better serve their patients — and that’s what this profession is really all about, serving patients.”
For more information:
- The General Optical Council can be reached at 41 Harley St., W1N 2D5, London, England; (44) 171-580-3898; fax: (44) 171-436-3525; e-mail: goc@optical.org or optical@globalnet.co.uk; www.optical.org.
- Nicholas Rumney, MScOptom, is managing director of a large independent practice in Hereford, England. He can be reached at nickrumney@dsl.pipex.com.
- The American Optometric Association can be reached at 243 N. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63141; (800) 365-2219; www.aoa.org.