The number of dentists on the UK Register, following the recent annual renewal period, has increased slightly.

Following the recent annual renewal period, there were 43,130 dentists on the General Dental Council (GDC) Register, a 2.2% increase from the previous year.  The growth is almost double the average growth over the previous four years (1.2%).

Conversely, 999 dentists did not renew their registration, which is 2.3% of those on the GDC Register on 31 December. This compares to an average of 2.8% over the previous four years.

The GDC said on its website:

“While we recognise there are important issues of widespread concern across dentistry – not least in relation to significant ongoing recruitment challenges in some areas – it is important to note that this data does not provide insight into the number of professionals working in different patterns (e.g. full time vs part time), how many dentists are working in NHS services compared to private practice, local workforce conditions, or the numbers of professionals working in different roles (e.g. academic).

“While the register is constantly changing, what we invariably see (for both the dentist and dental care professional registers) is that over the course of the year, the number of registered professionals increases due to new registrations, and then that number drops at the point of renewal as professionals leave the Register for a range of reasons.”

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