The Professional Standards Authority publishes its review of the General Dental Council’s performance for 2023/24. For this period, covering 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024, the GDC met 16 out of 18 Standards.
Writing on its website, the PSA said:
“This year, in order to meet Standard 3 (our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Standard), regulators must assure us they are delivering the four high-level outcomes supported by our new evidence matrix.
“We did not have sufficient assurance that the GDC was meeting three of the four outcomes, and so it did not meet Standard 3 this year. There are concerns with the progress and public reporting on the GDC’s previous and current EDI strategies. There is a lack of emphasis on diversity in the GDC’s current Standards, and it does not currently require education and training providers to demonstrate that they take appropriate account of diverse student needs. There are gaps in the EDI training for Council members and others. We have commended the GDC on its work to ensure that it seeks out and acts on the views of a diverse range of stakeholders in its policy and research work. We have also outlined a number of opportunities for improvement.”
“The GDC met Standard 11 this year having not met it for the last two years. The median processing time for UK graduate applications has improved quarter by quarter in this review period. The GDC has been clearing the backlog of overseas-qualified dentists who applied as Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) prior to the route closing on 8 March 2023. We expect it to continue to improve its performance in processing applications.”
On the GDC’s fitness to practise performance, the PSA said:
“The GDC did not meet Standard 15 again this year because it is taking too long to deal with fitness to practise cases. The GDC has put in place measures to improve its fitness to practise timeliness, but these have not yet made sufficient improvements to the time it is taking to reach decisions in cases. We have written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee to provide an update on the GDC’s performance, and we will continue to closely monitor the GDC’s performance in this area.”
Tom Whiting, Chief Executive of the General Dental Council (GDC), said:
“We welcome the PSA’s recognition of our progress across multiple areas, particularly in registration, while acknowledging there is more work to do. We remain firmly committed to improving fitness to practise processes and implementing our EDI strategy.
“Our priority is ensuring we deliver effective regulation that protects patients and supports dental professionals. We welcome close working with partners and stakeholder organisations to build trust in effective regulation and achieve a goal that we all share, which is patient safety and public confidence in the dental professions.”
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