The General Dental Council (GDC) has published a report on dental professionals who have died while fitness to practise (FtP) concerns were investigated or remediated.

The report covers the period 2019 to 2022. During this time, 20 dental professionals died while their cases were active, with causes of death categorised as natural, external, or unspecified, and one subcategory of suicide.

The report has included deaths in the subcategory of suicide when “suicide” was listed on the death certificate or notification. By convention, death certificates in Scotland and Northern Ireland do not use the word “suicide” or any synonym of it. Deaths that occurred overseas have been categorised as unspecified.

UK Fitness to Practise News

Lord Toby Harris, GDC Chair, said:

“The report serves as a call for everyone in the dental sector to reflect on the environment, systems and processes involved in being a dental professional. It took longer than we expected to complete the work and some of the issues have been complex, but we have delivered process improvements in parallel and taken care to ensure we can be confident in the data reported.

“Every death is a tragedy, and when the data and what we are doing to improve FtP are put aside, what is left is the death of people, some in tragic circumstances, and we must consider the families, loved ones and colleagues for whom the pain and hurt are still very raw, and we offer them our condolences.”

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