About this course
Protecting confidentiality means trusted care, professional integrity, and safer patient relationships.
[podcast mini /media/goc-standard-14-intro.mp3]
A patient shares something deeply personal with you—a detail about their health, their family, or their life circumstances. In that moment, they’re placing trust not just in your clinical skill, but in your ability to protect their information. One careless word at reception, one overheard phone call, one misplaced file could break that trust in an instant.
That’s why GOC Standard 14 is so important. Confidentiality and privacy are not abstract rules—they are the foundation of safe, respectful care. When patients know their information is handled with discretion, they open up. They tell you what really matters. And that honesty is what allows you to make the best clinical decisions for them.
This course will give you practical tools—scripts, checklists, and real-world scenarios—so you can handle information safely and lawfully every time. By embedding these habits, you protect patients, reduce risk, and demonstrate the professional integrity that underpins our entire profession. Confidentiality is not just compliance—it’s care.
Respecting privacy is a cornerstone of optical practice. This course explains how to handle patient information securely, respect confidentiality in all settings, and meet legal and professional requirements. With practical examples, you will be equipped to meet GOC Standard 14 with confidence.
This course is relevant to the whole optical team, including
- Registered optical professionals wanting reliable CPD mapped to GOC Standards
- Locums, jobseekers, and overseas practitioners needing to demonstrate current knowledge
- Colleagues addressing professional challenges who require structured CPD for reflection and remediation
- Managers and teams who want consistent, defensible training
CPD Time: 60 minutes (1 CE Credit / 1 Non-interactive CPD Point)
Assessment: 10 MCQs. Pass mark 80%. more…
On passing the assessment you will immediately receive a CPD Certificate.
Customer feedback on this course
- Clear, practical and immediately useful for reception and clinical teams.
- Excellent scenarios — helped us tighten our domiciliary visit checklist.
- Concise legal guidance that translated easily into everyday practice.
- Great templates and scripts; we adopted them straight away.
- Well structured for team training and local policy updates.
Aim:
The aim of this course is to ensure optical teams understand and apply GOC Standard 14 by protecting patient confidentiality and privacy across clinical, reception, digital, and domiciliary settings.
Course objectives:
- Provide clear teaching on the legal and professional framework for confidentiality, including UK GDPR, Data Protection Act, common law duty of confidentiality, and GOC expectations.
- Deliver practical tools, scripts, and scenarios to help learners prevent breaches, manage lawful disclosures, and document decisions consistently in everyday optical practice.
Anticipated learning outcomes:
On course completion you will be able to:
- Define legal and professional duties for confidentiality (Standard 14) and explain how they apply in optical settings including reception, clinic, digital, and domiciliary care.
- Recognise everyday and digital risks to privacy and apply proportionate mitigations (Standard 14), including secure verification, records safeguards, and social media boundaries.
- Manage lawful disclosures and consent processes (Standard 14) by authenticating requests, applying the minimum necessary principle, and documenting rationale clearly.
GOC Framework Mapping:
Standard 14: Confidentiality and Privacy
Domain: Professionalism
Learning content:
Introduction: Why Confidentiality Matters | Legal and Professional Framework | Protecting Confidentiality | Scenario Page 1: Everyday Risks | Team Compliance | Digital & Social Boundaries | Scenario Page 2: Digital Boundaries | Managing Disclosures | Scenario Page 3: Disclosures | Patient Information and Consent | Scenario Page 4: Consent and Carers | Posthumous Confidentiality | Domiciliary & Community Contexts | Reflection and Continuous Improvement | MCQ and Knowledge Check
View full course description
GOC Standard 14: Confidentiality and Privacy in Optical Practice
Course Description
GOC Standard 14: Confidentiality and Privacy in Optical Practice
This course provides optical teams with practical, legally grounded advice to protect patient confidentiality across reception areas, consulting rooms, digital systems and domiciliary settings. It focuses on simple habits, verification and documentation to reduce risk and show compliance.
Introduction: Why Confidentiality Matters
Explains confidentiality as the foundation of patient trust, how it affects disclosure and care quality, and the core principles: minimum necessary, need-to-know and high-yield everyday habits.
Legal and Professional Framework
Summarises the Data Protection Act 2018, UK GDPR, Human Rights Act Article 8, common law duty of confidentiality, GOC expectations and differences across the four UK nations.
Protecting Confidentiality
Practical controls for reception and public areas, screen and printer safeguards, telephone authentication, records access and audit trails.
Scenario Page 1: Everyday Risks
Scenarios covering reception desk conversations, visible screens and near-misses. Includes immediate mitigations, logging and ready-to-use reception scripts.
Team Compliance
Roles and responsibilities for all staff, induction and role-specific training, effective policies, just culture and vendor contract considerations.
Digital & Social Boundaries
Guidance on secure IT systems, encryption, MFA, BYOD risks, clinical images, approved apps and social media professionalism.
Scenario Page 2: Digital Boundaries
Covers messaging-group photo risks, social media identifiability, immediate responses and preventive digital controls.
Managing Disclosures
Lawful bases for sharing, safeguarding and serious-harm disclosures, minimum-necessary principle, redaction, verification and secure transmission.
Scenario Page 3: Disclosures
Examples such as non-accidental injury, police requests and documenting rationale, including escalation to IG or Caldicott leads.
Patient Information and Consent
Distinguishes implied and explicit consent, valid consent components, recording, consent with carers and fluctuating capacity, and children’s competence.
Scenario Page 4: Consent and Carers
Covers relatives requesting information, three-way calls, written authority, supported decision-making and identity checks.
Posthumous Confidentiality
Continued duties after death, Access to Health Records Act 1990, coroner/procurator fiscal requests and family communications.
Domiciliary & Community Contexts
Preparing for home and care-home visits, positioning equipment, managing bystanders, transporting records and lone-worker considerations.
Reflection and Continuous Improvement
Encourages personal reflection, near-miss logs, short audits, improvement cycles, digital housekeeping and DPIA triggers.
MCQ and Knowledge Check
Ten questions covering reception incidents, minimum necessary, consent, disclosures, digital boundaries and domiciliary practice.
Practice Reflection
Use complaints, incidents and near-misses as learning opportunities. Carry out short audits and update induction and local procedures regularly.
Course Completion
You will complete a feedback survey, take a multiple-choice exam and receive a CPD certificate on passing. The course promotes reflection and practical application in your practice.
You can copy and adapt this example PDP entry for your own needs and circumstances.
| PDP Learning or Maintenance need |
| Maintain compliance with GOC Standard 14 and strengthen everyday confidentiality practice |
| How does this relate to my field of practice? |
| Applies to reception, clinical consultations, records management, digital systems and domiciliary visits in optical settings. |
| Which development outcome(s) does it link to? |
| Standard 14 — confidentiality and privacy |
| What benefit will this have to my work? |
| Reduces risk of breaches, enhances patient trust, and supports defensible decisions in disclosures and consent. |
| How will I meet this learning or maintenance need? |
| Complete this course, apply practical controls at work, follow local policies and document decisions. |
| When will I complete the activity? |