UK Optician Register Scraper

Search the General Optical Council's (GOC) public Specialist Register at str.optical.org — the official, legally-mandated register of every optometrist, dispensing optician, optometry/dispensing student, and registered optical business ("body corporate") permitted to practise in the UK. No login, no API key, no cookies required — the register is public.

What this actor does

• Two search modes: individual registrants (registrant) or optical businesses (bodyCorporate)
• Search by name — surname (with optional phonetic "sounds-like" matching) and first name
• Search by exact GOC number(s) — one or many, comma-separated
• Filter by registration category — Optometrist, Dispensing Optician, Student (+ dual categories)
• Filter by specialty — Contact lens, Independent prescribing, Supplementary prescribing, Additional supply
• Postcode radius search — find every registrant/business within N miles of a UK postcode
• Full-profile enrichment — optionally visits each result's detail page to also capture qualifications, town, practice address, and fitness-to-practise decisions
• Empty fields are always omitted — every emitted field is real, non-null data

Output fields

Registrant records (recordType: "registrant")

Field	Description
gocNumber	Official GOC registration number, e.g. 01-12294, D-9396
name	Full registered name
registerType	Optometrist, Dispensing Optician, Student Optometrist, etc.
registrationStatus	e.g. Registered
registrationDate	Date of most recent registration, ISO yyyy-mm-dd
specialities	Specialty annotation, when held (e.g. Contact Lens Specialty)
qualifications	Professional qualifications abbreviation (detail page only)
town	Registered town (detail page only)
practiceAddresses	Practice address, when published (detail page only)
ftpDecisions	Fitness-to-practise decision text, when one exists (detail page only)
sourceUrl	Canonical GOC register profile URL
recordType	"registrant"
scrapedAt	UTC ISO timestamp

Body corporate records (recordType: "bodyCorporate")

Field	Description
gocNumber	Official GOC business registration number, e.g. CO-4310
companyName	Registered business name
registrationStatus	e.g. Registered
registrationDate	ISO yyyy-mm-dd
town	Registered town (detail page only)
practiceAddresses	Practice address (detail page only)
ftpDecisions	Fitness-to-practise decision text, when one exists (detail page only)
sourceUrl	Canonical GOC register profile URL
recordType	"bodyCorporate"
scrapedAt	UTC ISO timestamp

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	registrant	registrant or bodyCorporate
surname	string	–	(mode=registrant) Surname contains
soundsLikeSurname	bool	false	(mode=registrant) Match surname phonetically
forename	string	–	(mode=registrant) First name contains
registerType	select	–	(mode=registrant) Registration category
speciality	select	–	(mode=registrant) Specialty annotation
address	string	–	(mode=registrant) Address contains
sortBy	select	–	(mode=registrant) Sort by surname A-Z / Z-A
companyName	string	–	(mode=bodyCorporate) Company name contains
gocNumbers	array	–	Exact GOC number(s); overrides name search
postcode	string	–	UK postcode for a radius search (both modes)
radiusMiles	int	50	Radius in miles from postcode (1–100)
fetchDetails	bool	true	Fetch each profile's detail page for extra fields
maxItems	int	50	Hard cap on returned records (1–2000)

At least one search criterion (surname, forename, registerType, speciality, address, companyName, gocNumbers, or postcode) is required per mode — the register does not support an unfiltered "list everyone" query.

Example: find all Smiths on the register

{
  "mode": "registrant",
  "surname": "Smith",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: registered contact lens specialists

{
  "mode": "registrant",
  "speciality": "Contact lens",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: optical businesses near a postcode

{
  "mode": "bodyCorporate",
  "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
  "radiusMiles": 10,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: exact GOC number lookup

{
  "mode": "registrant",
  "gocNumbers": ["01-12294", "D-9396"]
}

Use cases

• Employer / recruiter verification — confirm an optometrist or dispensing optician holds a current, valid GOC registration before hiring
• Compliance & due diligence — check an optical business's registration status before a partnership or supply agreement
• Market research — map optical practices and specialists by postcode/region
• Patient safety — verify a practitioner's registered specialty (e.g. contact lens fitting, independent prescribing)
• Directory building — populate a "find an optician near you" tool with verified GOC data

FAQ

What is the GOC Specialist Register? The UK General Optical Council is the statutory regulator for optometry and dispensing opticians. Its public "Specialist Register" (branded str.optical.org) lets anyone verify whether an individual or business is currently permitted to practise/trade.

Do I need cookies, a login, or an API key? No. The register is a public search tool; this actor talks to the same public search endpoint the website itself uses.

Why do some records have fewer fields than others? qualifications, town, practiceAddresses, and ftpDecisions are only published for some registrants/businesses, and only appear when fetchDetails is enabled (visits the individual profile page). Fields the register doesn't publish for a given record are omitted rather than emitted as blank/null.

What does ftpDecisions mean? "Fitness to Practise" — any published regulatory decision against that registrant/business. Most registrants show no decision, so the field is simply absent.

Can I search by both name and postcode at once? Yes — all provided filters are combined (AND logic) by the register's own search, e.g. surname=Smith + postcode=SW1A 1AA finds only Smiths near that postcode.

What's the difference between registrant and bodyCorporate mode? registrant searches individual practitioners (optometrists, dispensing opticians, students). bodyCorporate searches registered optical businesses/companies — a separate GOC register requirement for any entity providing optical services.

How current is the data? The GOC register is the live, authoritative source — the same one used for official verification — so results reflect the register's current state at the time of the run.

Does it support non-Latin characters in name searches? UK optician names are virtually always Latin-script, so this is rarely a practical limitation. Note that the GOC's own search backend silently ignores non-Latin/CJK text in surname/forename/address/companyName (it returns its default unfiltered result set rather than zero matches) — this is upstream behavior on the register itself, not something this actor can change. Stick to Latin-script queries for predictable results.

Why does a record's sourceUrl occasionally return a server error when I click it? The GOC's register (str.optical.org) is a known-flaky public government site — its own detail pages intermittently return HTTP 500 (roughly 1 in 5 requests, independent of query), even for a plain browser visit. The actor retries its own detail-page fetches automatically (3 attempts with backoff) so this rarely affects scraped output, but the emitted sourceUrl itself points at the live GOC page and inherits that same intermittent flakiness — simply reload the link if it happens.