Reporting Illegal Sales of Contact Lenses within the UK
The BCLA are supporting the AIO to work together with the GOC to intensify the effort to effectively police and eradicate the illegal sales of contact lenses in towns and cities across the UK, along with UK based websites.
The GOC already have a team of people in London who are very actively engaged in enforcement action against illegal contact lens sales, but they do not have a physical presence across the country to maximise the outcome of their efforts. AIO and BCLA have agreed to ask their respective membership to be the GOC ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground to ensure that the action that they take against offending businesses is as effective as possible.
The following process has been agreed with the GOC :
• Members are invited to report to AIO and BCLA any incidents of illegal activity by completing the attached form (if you can provide supporting photographic evidence that would be great)
• Once a month AIO and BCLA will submit an aggregate report to GOC of all illegal activity reported by members
• GOC will investigate the complaints and formally approach the offending businesses to desist
• When GOC are advised by a business that it has ceased to engage in illegal activity, AIO/BCLA will be notified so that the reporting member can check to see if this is in fact the case and report back to AIO/BCLA accordingly
• When GOC action does not bear fruit they will refer the matter to Local Trading Standards to take action, and advise us they have done so. AIO/BCLA will inform the member on the ground and ask them to monitor for any change once a month has elapsed. If it has not AIO/BCLA will report back to GOC and also provide the member with a template e-mail/letter to send to Trading Standards
• If after a further month has elapsed there is no change then AIO/BCLA will escalate further through the relevant local authority’s CEO
We believe that this joined up approach will improve the effective outlawing of illegal contact lens sales. We recognise however it is just a starting point and no doubt the processes and actions taken will continue to develop and evolve as we learn from the roll out of this initiative.
We hope that you see this as a positive step by AIO and BCLA to make a real difference with what is an important issue.
Submit the completed form to [email protected]. The information supplied in the form will be sent to the AOI/GOC for them to be able to follow up the activity reported. Your details supplied will be used for the purposes outlined above only.