Since the Education Committee and the Professional Development committee merged, we have been very busy.  It is exciting discussing education from admission through to CPD and return to practice.  It is a great committee to be part of and meetings are always full of lively discussion.

Recruiting on our undergraduate programmes has been a challenge recently.  We have been actively involved in the SIHED campaign and applications are increasing.  Thank you to all those clinicians that have attended careers events across the country.  Prospective students want to hear what life is like once qualified so if you can accommodate one in your clinic you make a big difference.  Many students tell us the visiting a department really helped them decide Orthoptics was first choice.   Do not forget there are careers resources on the BIOS website.

We have been very excited by the Ophthalmic Common Clinical Competency Framework, which will allow us to have a transportable education in four key areas, Medical Retina, Cataract, Glaucoma, Acute and Emergency Eye Care.  This has been a great example of multi-disciplinary working and has achieved much but now we have to implement it and keep involved.  It is important we get Orthoptists on this training and on the Training the Trainers courses so we can continue to be active members of the clinical teams.

We have been working with the CAG and nCAG leads to improve and standardise information and guidelines we can share on the website with members.  My particular thanks go to Craig Murray for taking this work forward.

We have many projects to look forward to including Advanced Clinical Practice more extended roles and the challenge of HCPC updating the Standards of Proficiency.

If you have any questions please email me epdc@orthoptics.org.uk