This week’s announcement of a cull of bureaucracy for the health sector’s ‘arm’s length bodies’ (ALBs) could lead to new increases in GOC fees.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley (pictured) announced the cut-backs and revisions of duties of several of the Department of Health’s 18 ALBs – including the organsation that oversees the GOC, the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE).

The CHRE, which also carries performance reviews on professional regulators in dentistry, nursing and midwifery, is to be removed from the sector, the government has recommended. Other proposals for the CHRE are that it is made into a self-funding body by charging a levy on regulators, and that it extends its role to set standards for, and quality assures, voluntary registers.

Its review, and that of others, are set out in the White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, and Mr Lansley has said the DoH’s ALB sector will be transformed to cut cost and remove duplication and burdens on the NHS.

“Over the years the sector has grown to the point where overlap between organisations and duplication of effort have produced a needless bureaucratic web,” he said. “By making sure that the right functions are being carried out at the appropriate level, we will free up significant savings to support front-line NHS services.”

Nevertheless, the effect of this could well lead to the GOC passing on its levy to the CHRE to its registrants – optometrists, dispensing opticians and others.

This week the GOC said it needed further details from the DoH on how this levy will work, but responded with a statement: ‘In its report, Liberating the NHS: Report of the arm’s-length bodies review, the Department of Health has proposed that the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE), the overarching body that oversees the work of the UK healthcare regulators, will become self-funded through a levy on those that it regulates, including the General Optical Council. Further details of the proposed levy and scheduled implementation are yet to be announced. However, we anticipate that this will have an impact on the future retention and registration fee levels for GOC registrants.

‘Council will agree the 2011-12 retention fee at its meeting in November. Registration fees are the GOC’s only source of income, as we do not receive any additional funding from Government.

‘As such, we have a duty to demonstrate cost efficiencies in all areas of our work, and much of the work outlined in our strategic plan for 2010-15, such as developing online retention, will lead to greater long-term savings.’

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Peter Jones
July 30th, 2010
CHRE sounds like yet another bureaucratic body which to me we would be better to do without rather than pass on its costs to the GOC and then to optometrists.