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Healthcare Ethics New Zealand

Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board · Professional Conduct Committees · HPDT

For Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians in New Zealand

Remediation courses for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians facing an ODOB notification, complaint or investigation

  • From a first ODOB letter through a Professional Conduct Committee to the Tribunal
  • Self-paced online courses — start today, at your own pace
  • Work through insight, reflection and remediation
  • Written to the standards and guidance the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board issues under the HPCA Act
  • 24 courses
  • NZ$200 each
  • 2 CPD hours per course
  • CPD certificate on completion
  • Written to the ODOB’s standards
  • Bulk buy: any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400

At a glance

Who it is for
Optometrists and dispensing opticians facing an ODOB notification, a competence review, a health review, a Professional Conduct Committee or the Tribunal
Regulators covered
The Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board, its Competence Review and Health Committees, its Professional Conduct Committees and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal
CPD
2 hours per course
Access
Immediate, online, twelve months from purchase
On completion
CPD certificate for your response or portfolio
Price
NZ$200 per course · any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400

Certificate issued by Healthcare Ethics CoursesRemediation courses for regulatory processes.

Choosing your courses

Which courses should you take?

The Core ODOB Remediation Set applies to every notification or investigation, whatever the concern. Choose the type of concern named in your letter and you will see the courses that address it directly.

Core ODOB Remediation Set

Recommended for every notification or investigation you are currently facing, whatever the concern. These cover insight, reflection, remediation and the risk of repetition — the four things the ODOB, a Professional Conduct Committee and the Tribunal weigh once the facts are settled.

Recommended for every notification · 9 courses Certificate · 2 CPD hours
Ethics and Ethical Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians 2 CPD hours Add Ethics and Ethical Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians to basket
Professionalism and Professional Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians 2 CPD hours Add Professionalism and Professional Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians to basket
Insight for Fitness to Practise 2 CPD hours Add Insight for Fitness to Practise to basket
Reflection for Fitness to Practise 2 CPD hours Add Reflection for Fitness to Practise to basket
Remediation for Fitness to Practise 2 CPD hours Add Remediation for Fitness to Practise to basket
Ensuring No Repeat of Misconduct or Mistake in Future Practice 2 CPD hours Add Ensuring No Repeat of Misconduct or Mistake in Future Practice to basket
Fitness to Practise for Healthcare Professionals 2 CPD hours Add Fitness to Practise for Healthcare Professionals to basket
Dealing with a Complaint or Investigation Professionally 2 CPD hours Add Dealing with a Complaint or Investigation Professionally to basket
Rebuilding Trust of Patients, Colleagues, the Public and the Regulator 2 CPD hours Add Rebuilding Trust of Patients, Colleagues, the Public and the Regulator to basket

Choose the concern raised

Select the type of concern named in your letter. The Core Set above applies to every notification whatever the concern.

Ethics & Ethical Conduct

If the notification concerns ethical judgement or behaviour, or an allegation of unethical conduct.

Primary recommended courses 15 the 9 Core Set courses apply to every notification — the rest address this concern directly

Further relevant courses 9 related areas that often arise alongside this concern

Professionalism, Conduct & Attitude

If you are facing an allegation of unprofessional behaviour or conduct, or concerns about communication, documentation or attitude towards colleagues or patients.

Primary recommended courses 14 the 9 Core Set courses apply to every notification — the rest address this concern directly

Further relevant courses 10 related areas that often arise alongside this concern

Probity, Honesty and Financial Integrity

If you are dealing with allegations of dishonesty, falsified records, misleading claims, billing or conflicts of interest, or similar investigations.

Primary recommended courses 12 the 9 Core Set courses apply to every notification — the rest address this concern directly

Further relevant courses 12 related areas that often arise alongside this concern

Professional Boundaries: Patients & Colleagues

If the concerns or allegations relate to professional or ethical boundaries with patients or colleagues, sexual misconduct, consent or chaperone issues.

Primary recommended courses 13 the 9 Core Set courses apply to every notification — the rest address this concern directly

Further relevant courses 11 related areas that often arise alongside this concern

Clinical Care, Prescribing and Records

Where the concern is about the care itself — competence, prescribing, documentation or a competence review.

Primary recommended courses 14 the 9 Core Set courses apply to every notification — the rest address this concern directly

Further relevant courses 10 related areas that often arise alongside this concern

Notification, Investigation and Tribunal

If you are dealing with a notification, investigation, Professional Conduct Committee or Tribunal hearing — a competence review, a health process or a conduct referral under the HPCA Act, and what practitioners usually call fitness to practise.

Primary recommended courses 9 the 9 Core Set courses apply to every notification — the rest address this concern directly

Further relevant courses 15 related areas that often arise alongside this concern

The full library

All 24 courses for optometrists and dispensing opticians

Every course is NZ$200, carries 2 CPD hours, and issues a CPD certificate on completion. Access is immediate and runs for twelve months from purchase. Each appears under at least one concern above.

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Insight for Fitness to Practise

Insight is assessed in every Board matter, whatever the allegation. Helps you understand what the Board actually means by the word, shows you how to demonstrate insight rather than assert it, and supports you in putting it in writing before anyone decides anything.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Reflection for Fitness to Practise

Helps you write reflection that holds up to scrutiny from the Board or the Tribunal, analysing what happened rather than describing it. Takes you through structured models and supports you through the feelings that get in the way, which is why many people find this harder than they expect.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Remediation for Fitness to Practise

Supports you in building a remediation plan around the concerns actually raised, rather than assembling a stack of certificates. Shows you how to document what you have changed, and warns you off the pitfalls that make remediation read as box-ticking.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Fitness to Practise for Healthcare Professionals

Walks you through the process you are in: what fitness to practise means, why notifications are made to the Board, what happens at each stage, and what interim conditions, suspension or cancellation would involve. A sensible first course if the letter you received is the first you have heard of any of this.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Dealing with a Complaint or Investigation Professionally

Takes you through being investigated: what the Board and a Professional Conduct Committee expect, in what order, and what is asked of you at each stage. Helps you avoid the defensive responses that make matters worse, and manage the strain of it while you wait.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Medical Ethics Course

A longer course for matters where several concerns have been raised at once, or where the allegations are serious. Helps you work through genuinely difficult decisions in clinical practice and supports you in rebuilding trust with the Board.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Professional Ethics Course

For matters where your honesty, integrity or accountability in day-to-day practice has been questioned. Helps you see how these lapses usually happen and what they mean for patients and colleagues, and supports you in responding credibly while an investigation is open.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Duty of Candour for Healthcare Professionals

Being open after something goes wrong is a duty, not a courtesy. Helps you apologise properly without admitting liability, hold the conversation itself, and record it — and explains why a failure of candour is often treated more seriously than the error that prompted it.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Confidentiality in Healthcare Practice

A conversation overheard, records accessed, or something shared that should not have been. Helps you understand when disclosure is lawful and when it is mandatory, covers telehealth and digital records, and supports you in remediating a breach.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Documentation for Healthcare Professionals

Record-keeping features in many notifications, and a record amended after a concern is raised turns a clinical matter into one of honesty. Reminds you what accurate, timely notes look like and how an error should be corrected.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Ensuring Teamwork and Collaboration

For concerns that involve colleagues rather than patients — conflict, handover, delegation, or how you behave within a team. Helps you understand what went wrong and supports you in evidencing changed working relationships to the Board.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Ensuring Clinical Competence and Patient Safety

For concerns about your clinical judgement, knowledge or performance. Helps you work within the limits of your competence, recognise the early signs of declining performance, and show the Board that competence has been restored.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Probity and Honesty for Healthcare Professionals

If your letter uses the word probity, start here. Helps you understand what honesty and integrity mean in records, declarations and billing, and supports you in rebuilding trust through a documented remediation plan.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Financial Integrity for Healthcare Professionals

For matters involving money — billing, ACC claims, fee transparency, or an interest you did not declare. Helps you understand how these matters arise and what they mean for your registration, and supports you in responding to an ACC audit or a notification.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Professional Boundaries Course

Boundary matters are among the most serious the Board investigates. Helps you see where the lines sit and how they are crossed gradually, often without intent, and supports you in putting credible remediation together.

ODOB standards Add to basket

NZ$2002 CPD hours

Ethical Boundaries with Patients and Colleagues

For a relationship that became too close, contact outside work, or gifts. Reminds you of the warning signs and the power imbalance that makes these matters so serious, and helps you show insight and accountability afterwards.

ODOB standards Add to basket

Before anything else

Who investigates you — the ODOB, a Professional Conduct Committee, or the Tribunal?

The ODOB runs the competence, health and conduct processes for optometrists and dispensing opticians under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, through three routes — competence, health and conduct; a committee investigates conduct on its behalf; one national Tribunal hears the charge. Check the letterhead on your letter to see which stage you are at.

Your notification arrives at the Board

Anyone can raise a concern about an optometrist or dispensing optician in writing, on the Board’s notification form — a patient, a colleague, an employer, another health practitioner, ACC or the courts — and an employer who dismisses a practitioner, or accepts a resignation, for competence-related reasons is required by the Act to notify, as is anyone who believes a health condition may affect your practice. The Registrar assesses and triages every notification immediately, involving the Chair, the Board’s Professional Standards Advisor or its Professional Standards Committee where the matter is urgent, sorts it into competence, health or conduct, and asks you for a written response. Where there is a risk of harm the Board may impose interim conditions or an interim suspension while the matter is looked at.

The competence route

Where the concern is about your wider competence, the Board may refer you to its Competence Review Committee — two peers and a layperson — which spends a day at your practice: interviews, your practice systems, equipment and record keeping, and observation of patient examinations where appropriate, against the Board’s standards of clinical competence. It reports your practice as of an acceptable standard, acceptable with recommendations, or in need of a competence programme — supervision or mentoring for a set time, targeted problem-based learning, or a self-audit and reflection statements. The Board’s own words: if you do not meet the required standard, it can take steps to help you improve.

The health route

Where a mental or physical condition may affect your ability to practise safely, the concern goes to the Board’s Health Committee, which may require a medical examination and then impose conditions, accept voluntary undertakings, defer its decision, or suspend your practising certificate while you are unable to practise. A health process is not a conduct one.

A Professional Conduct Committee

Where the concern is about your conduct, or you have been convicted of a specified offence, the Board refers it to a Professional Conduct Committee — two registered practitioners and a layperson, with a legal adviser — a statutory committee that investigates independently of the Board. You respond in writing and, usually, meet the committee. It may recommend that the Board counsel you, review your competence or your scope of practice, or refer the matter to the Police; it may determine no further action or conciliation; and it may decide to lay a charge before the Tribunal.

The Tribunal

The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal hears a charge laid by a Professional Conduct Committee — a chair who is a lawyer, three members of your profession and a layperson, usually in public. It disciplines for professional misconduct — malpractice or negligence in your scope of practice, or conduct that discredits the profession — and its orders run from censure, fines and costs through conditions to suspension and cancellation of registration. It regularly orders a practitioner to complete a course in professional ethics or professional boundaries.

What does not change

Wherever your matter sits, what is asked of you is the same: insight into what happened, reflection set down in your own words, and remediation you can evidence. That is what the Core ODOB Remediation Set above is built around.

In short

What are ODOB remediation courses for optometrists and dispensing opticians?

ODOB remediation courses are self-paced online courses taken by an optometrist or dispensing optician registered in New Zealand to evidence insight, reflection and remediation in response to a notification to the ODOB, a competence review, a Professional Conduct Committee, or a charge before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. They are not a Board product, and the Board does not approve, accredit or endorse any provider’s courses. What they give you is independent, dated evidence that you identified the concern and acted on it — and when.

This page carries 24 such courses written for optometrists and dispensing opticians, NZ$200 each, any five for NZ$850 or any ten for NZ$1,400, saving up to NZ$600. They are written to Standards of Ethical Conduct — the Board’s Standards of Ethical Conduct for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians, revised November 2020 — and the standards and statements beneath it. Nine form a Core Set that applies to any notification, whatever the concern; the remaining fifteen are grouped by the type of concern raised. Every course carries 2 CPD hours and issues a CPD certificate from Healthcare Ethics Courses on completion, recording the course title, the hours and the date.

No course decides a notification, and no provider can promise an outcome. What matters is who reads the evidence, and when. The Board is answering a question about risk rather than punishment — is this likely to happen again? If a matter goes to the Tribunal, it reads the same file cold, months later, without having met you. Remediation completed while a matter is open reads as engagement; the identical material assembled just before a decision reads as compliance.

ODOB notifications

Supporting optometrists and dispensing opticians through a ODOB investigation

Courses
24, written for optometrists and dispensing opticians in New Zealand
Price
NZ$200 per course · any five for NZ$850 · any ten for NZ$1,400 (ten for the price of seven)
CPD per course
2 hours
Core Set
9 courses, 18 CPD hours
Written to
The ODOB’s Standards of Ethical Conduct (November 2020), its Standard on the maintenance of professional boundaries (November 2024) and its standards of clinical competence and of cultural competence and cultural safety
Certificate
Issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses on completion
Bodies covered
The Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board, its Competence Review Committee and Health Committee, Professional Conduct Committees and the Tribunal
Format
Online, self-paced, immediate access
Access
Twelve months from purchase, with unlimited revisiting

A notification to the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board, and the investigation that follows it, is one of the hardest things an optometrist or dispensing optician deals with, and it rarely arrives at a convenient moment. Whether the concern is about conduct, competence or health, and whether it came from a patient, a colleague, an employer or a mandatory notification made about you, the question the Board is answering is the same one: is the public at risk, and is this likely to happen again? Demonstrating active, documented remediation is one of the few parts of that process still within your control while everything else waits.

These courses are written for optometrists and dispensing opticians responding to concerns raised with the ODOB under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and for those referred on to the Competence Review Committee, the Health Committee, a Professional Conduct Committee or the Tribunal. Every course is written to Standards of Ethical Conduct and the Board’s standards and statements beneath it — on professional boundaries, integrity and courtesy with patients, disclosing personal interests in recommended options, keeping incentives and targets away from clinical judgement, openness when an adverse event occurs, records and the release of patient information, advertising, and conduct online. Structured study, written reflection and demonstrable change are what the Board — and later, if it comes to it, the Tribunal — treats as evidence of insight rather than assertion of it.

Every course issues a CPD certificate from Healthcare Ethics Courses on completion, recording 2 CPD hours, the course title and the date. The courses are written to the Board’s standards but are not accredited or endorsed by the ODOB or any other New Zealand body, and you should keep the certificate and your reflection with your self-audit and recertification records, noting that the course does not carry ODOB credits. The certificate is not the evidence on its own: attached to your own written reflection, it belongs in a remediation plan, in a written response to the Board, in a submission to a Professional Conduct Committee, or in evidence filed with the Tribunal.

Why it matters

What the ODOB is actually assessing

Once the facts are settled, the Board is answering a question about risk rather than punishment: is this likely to happen again?

Four things, and the order matters

Whether you understand what went wrong. Whether you accept responsibility for your part in it. Whether you recognise the effect it had — on the patient and their whānau, on colleagues, and on public confidence in the profession. And whether you can show meaningful change as a result. Many responses supply the first and the last and leave out the middle two.

Disclosure of harm is assessed alongside the clinical facts

What happened clinically is usually the shortest part of the story. What the Board examines — its Standards require you to be open and honest when an adverse event occurs, and to interact with patients with courtesy and integrity — is whether you told the patient, whether you escalated at the time, and what has changed since. A response that defends the clinical decision but never reaches those three things answers a question nobody asked.

Records are judged twice

Once as clinical care and once as evidence. Late entries, gaps and retrospective additions are looked at closely against the record-keeping requirements in the Board’s standards of clinical competence and its statement on the release and receipt of patient information. Amending a record after you know a concern has been raised turns a clinical matter into one of honesty, which is a far harder allegation to answer. Never alter an entry once a notification exists.

Beginning concedes nothing

Undertaking remediation is not an admission of anything. It is one of the few parts of this process entirely within your control while everything else waits, and it is equally useful whether you are facing the Competence Review Committee, a health process, a Professional Conduct Committee, or the Tribunal.

Evidence somebody else can verify

Your own account of your own improvement is the weakest evidence available, and every optometrist or dispensing optician offers it. A dated certificate from an external provider, attached to your own written reflection, is not. Timing matters too: study completed while a matter is open reads as engagement, while the identical material assembled just before a decision reads as compliance.

Written for the ODOB

Aligned with Standards of Ethical Conduct and the standards and statements the Board publishes under the Act — the Standard on the maintenance of professional boundaries, the standards of clinical competence and of cultural competence and cultural safety, its statements on internet and electronic communications, telehealth and the release of patient information, and its advertising guidelines — and its Competence Review Committee, Health Committee and Professional Conduct Committee processes and the Tribunal.

Why these courses

Why a certificated course helps in a response to the ODOB

The Board has told you what is being assessed. These are the six things a course can actually contribute to that, and the limits of each.

Evidence somebody else can verify

Your own account of your own improvement is the weakest evidence available, and every optometrist or dispensing optician offers it. A dated certificate issued by an external provider is not your account — it is a record that exists independently of you, showing what you studied and when you did it.

Immediate access, when timing is the point

Enrol and start the same day. There is nothing to schedule and no cohort to wait for, which matters when you are asked to show prompt action to the Board, to your indemnity insurer, or to an employer running its own process alongside the notification.

Written to Standards of Ethical Conduct

A conduct matter is measured against Standards of Ethical Conduct and the standards and statements beneath it, not against general professional-development material. Each course addresses the standards often cited in notifications about optometrists and dispensing opticians, in the terminology the Board itself uses.

Grouped by the concern actually raised

Read the concern in your letter, choose the matching type above, and the page shows the Core Set alongside the courses that address that concern directly. Study that answers the concern reads very differently from a list of everything available.

A certificate is half of it

A certificate evidences attendance. A certificate together with your own written reflection — what you understood, what you accept, what changed — evidences insight. The courses are built so that the reflection has something specific to attach to.

The kind of study advisers ask for

Indemnity insurers, unions and health law practices routinely advise optometrists and dispensing opticians facing a notification to undertake structured, documented study as part of a remediation plan, and the Board and the Tribunal order it. We are recommended by advisers on that basis, which is not the same as endorsement by any of them, and we do not claim it is.

Who wrote these courses

Author and course facilitator

Dr Shehzad Iqbal, founder and course facilitator at Healthcare Ethics New Zealand

Dr Shehzad Iqbal

Founder and course facilitator, Healthcare Ethics New Zealand

Every course is written and facilitated by Dr Iqbal, who combines clinical practice with formal postgraduate training in healthcare law and ethics. A remediation course has to speak to the clinical reality of how concerns arise and to the regulatory standards against which they are afterwards judged.

He founded Probity & Ethics in the United Kingdom in 2020 and Healthcare Ethics Courses, which issues the certificates, in 2025. More about us.

MBBS · MRCS · MRCGP · Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics, University of Dundee

Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal. Last reviewed .

Key terms

What the ODOB and the Tribunal mean by insight, reflection and remediation

These terms recur throughout the Board’s correspondence. They are not interchangeable, and being clear about which one a letter is asking for makes a practical difference to how you respond.

Notification
The Board’s word for a concern raised about you — by a patient, a colleague, an employer, another health practitioner, ACC or the courts — and the start of a process, not a finding. The Registrar assesses and triages every notification immediately, involving the Chair, the Professional Standards Advisor or the Professional Standards Committee where needed, decides whether it raises competence, health or conduct, and asks you for a written response.
Fitness to practise
In the Act, a health matter: a notice under section 45 that a mental or physical condition may be affecting your ability to practise, dealt with by medical examination, conditions on your scope or interim suspension — separately from competence (section 36) and conduct (a Professional Conduct Committee, section 71), and also the test for registration and a practising certificate (section 16). The UK regulators use the phrase for every kind of concern, which is why many practitioners say “fitness to practise” when they mean any Council or Board investigation; the ODOB uses it for the health route.
Competence review
The ODOB’s process where a concern is about a practitioner’s wider competence. The Board refers you to its Competence Review Committee — two peers and a layperson — which spends a day at your practice looking at your systems, equipment, records and, where appropriate, your examinations, against the standards of clinical competence. Its report finds your practice acceptable, acceptable with recommendations, or in need of a competence programme: supervision or mentoring, targeted problem-based learning, or a self-audit and reflection statements. It is not a disciplinary process, but a Professional Conduct Committee can recommend one.
Professional Conduct Committee
Two registered practitioners and a layperson, with a legal adviser, appointed by the Board but acting independently of it, who investigate the particular concern referred to them. You respond in writing and usually meet the committee. It may recommend that the Board review your competence, fitness or scope of practice, counsel you, refer the matter to the Police, or lay a charge before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal.
Interim suspension and interim conditions
The Board suspending your practising certificate, or adding conditions to your scope of practice, while a matter is still being looked at — where it believes there is a risk of serious harm to the public. The Act allows it pending a competence review (section 39), a health assessment (section 48) or a Professional Conduct Committee investigation (sections 69 and 69A). It is protective, not a finding; you are given the chance to respond first, and an agreement setting temporary limits on your practice is often reached instead.
Professional misconduct
The ground on which the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal disciplines an optometrist or dispensing optician under section 100 of the Act: an act or omission that amounts to malpractice or negligence in your scope of practice, or that has brought or was likely to bring discredit to the profession. A conviction reflecting on fitness to practise, and a breach of conditions, are separate grounds.
Insight
Understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on the patient and their whānau, on colleagues and on public confidence in the profession. Insight is weighed at almost every stage whatever the concern, and it is the element often described as lacking.
Reflection
Setting that understanding down honestly and in your own words, including what you would do differently and what you have already changed. Reflection is the written record of insight, which is why the two are so often confused.
Remediation
The concrete steps taken so the same thing does not happen again — training, supervision, changes to how you work — together with evidence that they happened. Insight without remediation is an account; remediation without insight is a certificate. It is what the Board or the Tribunal orders when it requires an optometrist or dispensing optician to complete a course in professional ethics or professional boundaries.

These descriptions are our summary of how the terms are used in New Zealand regulatory practice. They are not quotations from the ODOB or the Tribunal, and they are not legal advice. Your indemnity insurer, union or lawyer should advise on your own case.

Questions optometrists and dispensing opticians ask us

Frequently asked questions

Which courses should I take for a ODOB notification?

Start with the Core Set above. Those nine cover both halves of what the Board reads: the standards you are judged against — Ethics and Ethical Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians and Professionalism and Professional Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians, both written to Standards of Ethical Conduct — and what it weighs once the facts are settled: insight, reflection, remediation, assurance the concern will not recur, and how the process itself works. They apply to every notification whatever the concern.

Then add the courses that match the concern actually raised. Use the selector above: choose the type of concern in your letter and you will see the courses that address it directly.

Speak to your indemnity insurer, union or lawyer before you respond. They will tell you what evidence is appropriate for your particular matter. Each course is NZ$200 and carries 2 CPD hours; the Bulk Buy Offer covers any five for NZ$850 or any ten for NZ$1,400, saving up to NZ$600.

Who investigates me — the Board, a Professional Conduct Committee, or the Tribunal?

The ODOB. It alone decides whether you hold a practising certificate, what conditions sit on your scope of practice, and whether you are fit to practise. Its Registrar assesses and triages every notification first and decides which route it takes: the Competence Review Committee for competence, the Health Committee for health, or a Professional Conduct Committee for conduct — or no further action.

A Professional Conduct Committee is appointed by the Board but acts independently of it. It investigates the particular concern referred to it and reports back with recommendations, which may include laying a charge before the Tribunal.

The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal is the last stage and the only one that can find professional misconduct. Check the letterhead on your letter: it tells you which stage you are at.

What is interim suspension, and what should I do?

Interim suspension is the Board suspending your practising certificate — or adding conditions to your scope of practice — while a competence review, a health assessment or a Professional Conduct Committee investigation is still under way, where it believes there is a risk of serious harm to the public. It is protective rather than punitive and is not a finding against you. In many cases an agreement setting temporary limitations on your practice is reached instead.

You are given the opportunity to respond before an order is made, and the Board can revoke it at any time once satisfied you can practise safely. Contact your indemnity insurer, union or lawyer the same day. What you put in writing first shapes everything that follows.

Do I get a certificate, and will it count towards my recertification?

Yes. Healthcare Ethics Courses issues a CPD certificate for every course, recording 2 CPD hours, the course title and the date of completion. That is what makes it usable as evidence in a response, a remediation plan or a professional development record.

On accreditation: the courses are written to Standards of Ethical Conduct and the Board’s standards and statements beneath it, but are not accredited or endorsed by the ODOB or any other New Zealand body, and no responsible authority accredits courses from any provider. The Board’s recertification programme asks an optometrist for at least 40 CPD credits, and a dispensing optician for at least 20, in each two-year cycle — including at least one Ethical conduct credit and one Cultural safety credit per cycle — earned through Board-accredited activities and recorded in your online portal, with a self-audit for a random sample each year covering practice systems, ethical practice and reflections on practice. Our courses are not Board-accredited and do not carry ODOB credits; they belong instead in the reflection and remediation evidence a self-audit, a competence programme or a response to the Board asks for.

How long do I have access to a course?

Access runs for twelve months from the date of purchase. You start immediately, work at your own pace, and there is no schedule to keep to within that period.

Finishing a course does not end your access. Once you have completed it and downloaded your certificate you can return to the material as often as you like for the rest of the twelve months, at no further cost.

Can I get a certificate with a later date?

No. The certificate records the date you completed the course, and that date does not change. Revisiting the material inside your twelve months does not produce a newly dated one.

If you need a certificate carrying a later date — because the Board, an employer or the Tribunal has asked for recent evidence — you buy the course again. Within twelve months of your original purchase a repeat is half price; after twelve months it is the full NZ$200.

Will completing courses resolve my notification?

No. No course, from us or from anyone else, determines the outcome of a notification, a competence review, a Professional Conduct Committee investigation or a Tribunal hearing, and any provider suggesting otherwise is worth treating with caution.

What a course can do is help you build the insight and reflection your response needs, and give you a dated, verifiable certificate to evidence it. How much weight that carries depends on the circumstances of the individual case.

How do I evidence insight and remediation to the ODOB?

Four things, and the order matters. Whether you understand what went wrong. Whether you accept responsibility for your part in it. Whether you recognise the effect it had — on the patient and their whānau, on colleagues, and on public confidence in the profession. And whether you can show meaningful change as a result.

Many responses supply the first and the last and leave out the middle two. That is a common shape of a finding that insight is lacking. The Insight, Reflection and Remediation courses address each in turn.

The Board or the Tribunal has ordered me to complete an ethics or professional boundaries course — do these qualify?

Orders of that kind are common: the Board may require a course as part of a recertification programme or as a condition on your practising certificate, and the Tribunal regularly orders an optometrist or dispensing optician to complete a course in professional ethics or professional boundaries. Our Ethics, Professionalism, Professional Boundaries and Ethical Boundaries courses are written for that purpose and each issues a dated certificate.

Whether a particular course satisfies a particular order is for the body that made it. Read the wording of the order with your indemnity insurer, union or lawyer, and where it requires approval in advance, seek that approval before you enrol.

Can I take a course if my practising certificate is suspended or has conditions?

Yes. There is no registration check and no requirement to hold a current practising certificate. The courses are taken as often by optometrists and dispensing opticians who are suspended, who have conditions on their scope of practice, or who are working towards a new practising certificate as they are by those with a live notification.

If conditions require you to complete specific education, check the wording with your indemnity insurer, union or lawyer before choosing, so that what you complete matches what was ordered.

The concern is about professional boundaries — what applies?

The Standards of Ethical Conduct — always maintain appropriate professional boundaries — and beneath them the Board’s Standard on the maintenance of professional boundaries (version 4, November 2024): a breach of sexual boundaries is a boundary violation in all circumstances; gifts, loans, bequests and financial arrangements that could influence your judgement are not to be accepted or encouraged; family and whānau are to be referred on where the relationship compromises care; and any personal relationship with someone formerly in your care is weighed for vulnerability and power. An eye examination is close, quiet and repeated, which is why the Board sets this out.

What every boundary standard has in common is where it puts the responsibility. The Board’s standard says it is solely the practitioner’s responsibility to maintain or restore the boundary, whoever is causing the violation, and the imbalance of power is treated as a permanent feature of the relationship rather than something that ends at the door. Boundary matters are among the common routes to a charge of professional misconduct before the Tribunal.

Contact your indemnity provider, professional association or lawyer before responding to an allegation in this category, and before contacting the patient or anyone connected with them.

The notification is about my health — is that a disciplinary matter?

No. A concern that a mental or physical condition may affect your ability to practise safely goes to the Board’s Health Committee, which may require a medical examination and then impose conditions, accept voluntary undertakings, defer its decision or suspend your practising certificate while you are unable to practise. It is a health process, not a conduct one. Employers and health practitioners are required to notify the Board in this situation, and you are required to notify the Board yourself.

What the Board still wants to see is insight into how the condition affected your practice and what you have put in place. The Insight and Reflection courses are as relevant here as in a conduct matter.

Do these courses count as ODOB Ethical conduct CPD credits?

No, and we say so plainly. The Board’s recertification programme requires at least one Ethical conduct credit and one Cultural safety credit in each two-year cycle, earned through Board-accredited activities recorded in your online portal; our courses are not accredited by the Board and carry no ODOB credits. Each course issues a CPD certificate recording 2 CPD hours, which is evidence of structured study, not a credit.

Where the courses do belong is in the evidence the Board reads: a written response to a notification, the reflection statements and self-audit a competence programme asks for, the reflections on practice a random self-audit asks about, and a submission to a Professional Conduct Committee or the Tribunal. A dated certificate attached to your own written reflection is what those are looking for.

The concern is about sales targets, incentives or a recommendation I made — which courses?

These are integrity matters in the Board’s eyes. The Standards of Ethical Conduct require you to disclose any personal interest in the options you recommend, to avoid conflicts of interest, and to ensure that incentives, targets and financial gain do not affect your clinical judgement, actions or recommendations; the Board’s advertising guidelines sit beneath that. Choose Probity, Honesty and Financial Integrity above: Probity and Honesty, Financial Integrity, Effective Communication and Documentation address the concerns often raised, alongside the Core Set.

I trained overseas — are these relevant?

Yes, and often particularly so. Practitioners who trained overseas are sometimes navigating an unfamiliar regulatory system at the same time as responding to a concern, and the vocabulary differs from what they learnt — practising certificate rather than licence, scope of practice rather than registration category, a Competence Review Committee that visits your practice rather than a fitness to practise panel, and a Board that handles competence, health and conduct through three different committees.

The courses are written to the Board’s Standards of Ethical Conduct, its professional boundaries standard and its standards of clinical competence, and explain the process in New Zealand terms.

Is what I do confidential?

Yes. Courses are taken privately online at your own pace. We never share participant details with the ODOB, the Tribunal, an employer, a union or an indemnity provider unless you choose to do so yourself.

Many optometrists and dispensing opticians complete a course before deciding whether to include it in a submission at all.

Official guidance

Read the Board’s own standards

If you are facing a notification, read the source material directly as well as anything written about it.

The standards

Standards of Ethical Conduct for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians

Respect patients, care for patients, work collaboratively with others, contribute to the health of the community. In the Board’s words, a failure to uphold them may lead to a professional or disciplinary investigation and be used by employers, tribunals and courts to evaluate conduct. Revised November 2020.

odob.health.nz ↗ Standard

Standard on the maintenance of professional boundaries

Sexual boundaries, gifts and financial arrangements, family and whānau, and where the responsibility sits — solely with the practitioner. STD-0005, version 4, November 2024.

odob.health.nz ↗ Standards

Standards and guidelines

The standards of clinical competence for optometrists and for dispensing opticians, cultural competence and cultural safety, telehealth, internet and electronic communications, release of patient information and advertising — each a standard you may be measured against.

odob.health.nz ↗ Fitness to practise

Notifications and competence reviews

What happens when the Board receives a concern, in the Board’s own words: what it can act on, competence reviews, and what it can do while a matter is looked at.

odob.health.nz ↗

Other professions

Courses for other Councils and Boards

We publish equivalent remediation courses for practitioners regulated by every other responsible authority.

Start today, finish at your own pace

Our courses support optometrists and dispensing opticians through ODOB notifications and complaints, investigations, Professional Conduct Committees and the Tribunal. Immediate access, a CPD certificate on completion, and NZ$200 per course — or any five for NZ$850 or any ten for NZ$1,400, saving up to NZ$600.

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