Clause 38 - Local Optical Committees
Health Bill
5:30 pm
Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Health), Department of Health; Don Valley, Labour)
I am afraid that I cannot accept any of the amendments and I hope to explain why they are unnecessary.
Amendment No. 33 seeks to make local optical committees representative of dispensing opticians if they receive payments for the supply, repair or replacement of optical appliances. We accept that some optical businesses are not represented by their local optical committee. The Bill makes it clear that such committees must be representative of all providers with contracts to provide primary ophthalmic services. That allows the membership of the committee to draw from the full range of local expertise and experience and to improve their effectiveness as a local representative committee. The local optical committee provides a body with which PCTs may consult on primary ophthalmic services locally. There are equivalent committees for medicine, dentistry and pharmacy and the provision will provide a formalised body for consultation in those areas.
Dispensing opticians and lay-owned businesses that have contracts as providers of primary ophthalmic services with primary care trusts will be represented by local optical committees, because they have a contract. That relates to the points that we made earlier about allowing dispensing opticians and lay members to contract directly to provide services. A specific reference is not needed to dispensing opticians as providers, as they are included in the general power. However, dispensing opticians and lay-owned businesses that do not have contracts with primary care trusts will not fall within that.
We think it right that the local optical committee should be representative of providers who contract with the PCT and those who perform primary ophthalmic services in that area. However, the committee will be able to co-opt people who are neither providers nor performers of primary ophthalmic services if it wishes to do so. I do not believe that the arrangements that we are suggesting will restrict the range of persons and the expertise that can be brought to the body.
Under amendment No. 116, there would be a specific reference to dispensing opticians as having a right to be represented by the local optical committee if they had a contract to provide primary ophthalmic services. We support the right of providers with general ophthalmic services contracts to be represented by the LOC. However, the Bill already provides, on page 34, line 27, for every person with a contract to provide primary ophthalmic services to be represented by that committee. That general entitlement includes dispensing opticians, so again there is no need for a specific reference.
Amendment No. 117 would include a reference to dispensing opticians as performers of primary ophthalmic services alongside optometrists. However, individual dispensing opticians do not perform primary ophthalmic services, which is currently only the testing of sight. Dispensing opticians are therefore not appropriate for inclusion in that way. There is no reason to include in the Bill one group that may at some future point provide a prescribed service, but not to include others. It is right that the local optical committee should be representative of providers who contract with the PCT and those who perform primary ophthalmic services in that area. The committee will be able to co-opt people who do not come into those categories if it wishes to do so.
Amendment No. 118 would remove the requirement that performers of primary ophthalmic services who wish to be represented by a local optical committee should notify the committee of that. A number of optometrists will work for a number of different employers in the areas of different PCTs for short periods. We discussed that earlier. The amendment would make it mandatory that those people be represented by a number of different local optical committees. It is more sensible for a performer to be represented by a local optical committee where he works regularly and with which he has an ongoing relationship, rather than somewhere that he or she goes to occasionally. A requirement for the performer to notify the PCT that he wishes to be represented means that the practitioner will be able to consider where he or she would be best represented.
For those reasons, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn and that I have reassured hon. Members of our intent.