chief executive’s report
One of the things about the College that I find most endearing, but at the same time most frustrating, is our reluctance to blow our own trumpet. This report shows the enormous amount that has been achieved during the year – not in an ad hoc reactive way either, but as part of a carefully planned, costed and measured strategy. Our income comes from our members and everything we do has to be with our members in mind – their future, their profession, their place in the new NHS world. So I am especially pleased to see how successful the new regional events which we piloted during the year have been; so successful that we are directing more staff and Officer resources towards making these events a central plank of our support for our members throughout the UK.
Times are hard for everyone but despite that we are blessed to have the involvement and support of so many of our members on a purely voluntary basis, as members of Council, the Board of Trustees, and committees. It is because of that involvement from optometrists who care about the development of their profession and know that the College is a highly respected voice for their profession, that we are able to do so much. Organisations such as NICE have a difficult job that is
only going to become more challenging. The experience of responding to the recent NICE guidelines on glaucoma has demonstrated that the College can best serve the public and the profession by working in collaboration with NICE and other bodies to ensure that guidelines are effective and achievable. In this instance we were able to work closely with our ophthalmology colleagues and produce clear, unambiguous and common sense guidance that all stakeholders signed up to, because they were all involved. The questions we are all asking about the future of the GOS, about funding for primary care, about the place of optometry in the new structures, take up a great deal of our time and we made a new and important appointment to oversee the College’s strategy as we negotiate tricky and uncharted waters. Jo Mullin took on the role of Director of Policy and Strategy in September, with Jackie Martin, formerly Head of Education, taking on Jo’s former role of Director of Education. Our new
public affairs strategy has had an early win with our highly successful glaucoma summit, bringing together a very wide range of stakeholders to agree on appropriate responses to the NICE consultation. You can see a theme here – bringing people together and finding a way forward that meets the needs of interconnected but diverse interests is a real strength that I see time and time again in the College. It isn’t the sort of thing you shout from the rooftops as being ‘ours’ because in truth, success depends on the willingness of every organisation and individual involved to find a way forward, but I think we can justly celebrate the trust that others have in the College’s ability to manage the process with the professionalism that defines us and all we do. I hope that the following pages speak for themselves – setting out clearly what we planned to do at the start of the year, and describing what we had achieved by the end of the year. This report is testament to the hard work of so many people and I thank you all.
Bryony Pawinska
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