GDC investigations and the heavy toll on mental health
Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 2nd June 2023
Dr Raj Rattan, Dental Director at Dental Protection
At Dental Protection, we see day in day out how GDC investigations impact on dental professionals’ health – anxiety, insomnia, depression and loss of confidence are just some of the effects we see.
A Dental Protection survey of 125 dental professionals who have been investigated by the dental regulator in the last five years, shines a light on this issue. 82% of respondents said the investigation had a detrimental impact on their mental health and 96% said it caused stress and anxiety. 14% quit dentistry due to the investigation, and a further 38% considered leaving. Worryingly, over a quarter (28%) said they experienced suicidal thoughts during the process.
To have your fitness to practise called into question and jeopardised can be devastating. Comments from dentists who participated in the survey encapsulate this, one described it as “the most distressful situation I faced in my life”. Another said “I was in serious distress, unable to sleep at night and I could not focus on work or care for my family. I could not find any pleasure in my daily life. I was questioning myself even for the simplest clinical matters. I considered leaving dentistry many times.”
Many highlighted the tone of the GDC’s correspondence as having the most impact on their mental health, including feeling as though they were “guilty until proven innocent” right from the outset. Others told us the length of the GDC investigation affected them most, with investigations lasting several years in some instances.
Without doubt, delays to investigations make an already stressful situation much worse, and this has been noted by the Professional Standards Authority – the organisation tasked with overseeing the performance of the GDC and other professional regulators. In its 2021/2022 review of the regulator, the PSA said the GDC did not meet its Standard of Good Regulation for timeliness in fitness to practise. It said it is taking too long to progress cases through the system, and the number of open older cases has increased.
This is the fifth year in a row that the GDC has not met the Standard, and the PSA has escalated its concerns to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
GDC reform would give the regulator discretion to not take forward investigations where allegations clearly do not require action, to focus on the most serious allegations and process them more quickly, and the Government must progress this with more urgency – starting with at least clear timetable for GDC reform. But the GDC can and should make more progress in the meantime – it must deliver on its 2021 commitment to tackle the delays to cases itself, through alternative ways of managing the caseload and increasing the size of its team.
We would also like to see the GDC acknowledge the impact an investigation may have on mental health in its letters. Compassion comes at no cost to the GDC, but can mean so much to the dentist on the receiving end of a potentially career changing – and sometimes life changing – letter. Ensuring correspondence is accessible across all devices is another simple improvement it could make to reduce additional stress to the dentist.
Could the GDC go further and consider introducing an independent 24/7 wellbeing support service for those who are facing, or who have faced, an investigation? The regulator may argue this is not necessary, and that it signposts to relevant external support services, but I feel our survey data tells a different story.
While we know over a quarter of dentists under investigation experienced suicidal thoughts during the process, we do not as yet know how many registrants have taken their own lives. The GDC had promised to publish this data in the first half of 2023, and while it will make for very difficult reading for us all, it will demonstrate transparency and help to understand the extent of this problem.
One dentist experiencing suicidal thoughts due to a GDC investigation is one too many, and both the GDC and the Government must take every possible step to address this issue.
