GDC research shows overrepresented groups in fitness to practise proceedings

Male dentists with an ethnicity category other than white and holding a qualification gained outside the UK are overrepresented groups in fitness to practise proceeding, General Dental Council (GDC) research has found.

On its website, the GDC wrote:

“It can be a lengthy and difficult process for those involved. We are working to modernise our fitness to practise processes within our current legislative framework and to understand how we can unlock the potential held in the fitness to practise information and data we record.

“The work was commissioned to underpin two important workstreams. The first to inform ongoing work to improve our fitness to practise processes and performance, and the second to understand what steps we need to take to ensure we can infer meaningful learning from the process that can be shared with stakeholders and inform prevention strategies.”

The themes that emerged from the analysis were professional practice, clinical complaints and substantive criminal actions and/or convictions, each with subthemes that provide further detail about the considerations in these cases. Researchers have recommended opportunities for further data management improvements to support further work in this area.

Researchers also identified factors or characteristics of dental professionals that are overrepresented in fitness to practise data when compared to the registrant population. These included being male, with an ethnicity category other than white, being a dentist and holding a qualification gained outside the UK. At later stages of the process, these narrowed to being registered as a dentist and those who qualified outside the UK or EU. 

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