The GDC is combining its fitness to practise and registration directorates into a Regulation directorate, led by a new, recently recruited, Executive Director who joins in September.

The Regulation directorate will enhance resilience and efficiency and improve recruitment, flexibility and career development for staff. 

This newly created role is a significant and influential senior leadership position and will be responsible for a large part of the GDC’s operation, specifically the core regulatory functions of Registration, Fitness to Practise and Hearings, leading a multi-disciplinary team of over 110 people. 

Theresa Thorp will be joining the GDC as Executive Director, Regulation on 14 September, based in Birmingham. Theresa joins the GDC from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors where she has held several positions, most recently Director Regulation Enforcement & Governance. She is a qualified Advocate with rights of appearance in the South African High Courts and a Solicitor-Advocate (criminal) in England and Wales.  

The current Executive Director, Fitness to Practise, John Cullinane, will take his extensive knowledge and experience to lead the GDC’s Hearings Service, including the Dental Professionals Hearing Service which launched last year. 

Ian Brack, GDC CEO and Registrar, said: “Our overarching objective is protection of the public. To do this, one of our most important tasks is to ensure integrity of the register of dental professionals, including who should and should no longer be on that register. Bringing together registration and fitness to practise into a single function brings the unified approach needed to ensure that we deliver our regulatory purpose efficiently and effectively.”

Following an open and competitive recruitment process, the General Dental Council (GDC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Serbjit Kaur MBE and Timea Milovecz as registrant members of Council. Both appointments have been made and approved by the Privy Council.

They will join Council on 1 October 2023, when Caroline Logan and Jeyanthi John leave Council, following the completion of their second terms in office.

Serbjit Kaur has previous non-executive experience including financial monitoring, organisational reporting and risk management, and she will also join our Audit and Risk Committee. Timea Milovecz’s role was designed to appeal to registrants at an earlier stage in their career and was promoted to a wider range of dental professionals and is intended to provide plenty of opportunities to develop board skills within a regulatory environment.

Both appointees bring a wealth of different experiences that will be invaluable to Council.

Serbjit brings significant experience as a dental practitioner and practice owner, both in the NHS and private sectors.

As a dentist, she has had a wide and varied career including the roles of Deputy Chief Dental Officer and Acting Chief Dental Officer at NHS England between 2013 and 2015. Before this, she spent five years as the Head of Quality and Standards – Dental and Eye Care at the Department of Health and Social Care and has represented UK dental interests at the European Commission.

She brings significant experience in scrutiny and oversight through her roles as an Associate Non-Executive Director and then Non-Executive Director at Nottingham University Hospital Trust (NUH), and as a registrant Member of the GDC’s Statutory Panellists Assurance Committee – a role she has held since 2020. At NUH, she previously sat on the Audit Committee and the Quality Assurance Committee, sits on the People and Culture Committee, and currently Chairs the Equality and Diversity Assurance Committee.

Serbjit also holds an MA in Applied Health Policies.

Timea initially registered with the GDC as a dental nurse, and then additionally as a dental hygienist, and has worked in both clinical capacities during her career.

She is currently a dental inspector in the Oral Health Team in London and the East of England for the Care Quality Commission, where she undertakes inspections and assessments of dental services. In this role she works closely with practices requiring improvement, and forms judgments about quality, safety and regulatory risk. For the past ten years, Timea has also sat as a member of the GDC’s Fitness to Practise panel.

Timea previously worked in private practice for 12 years, initially overseeing compliance and patient care services, and then clinically in both her GDC registrant roles. All these roles have afforded her a breadth of understanding of regulation within the dental sector.

Timea also holds a Master’s degree in Healthcare Leadership from Anglia Ruskin University and a Level 6 Professional Award in Regulatory Skills in the Health and Social Care Sector.

In announcing both appointments, Chair of Council Lord Toby Harris said: “I’d like to welcome Serbjit and Timea and look forward to working with them. Both bring a wealth of different experiences from across the dental professions and have demonstrated they have the enthusiasm, passion, and breadth of view to provide strategic oversight to the GDC and will be able to provide new perspectives and insights.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Caroline and Jeyanthi for their support and dedication to the GDC, both as Council Members and members of the GDC’s Remuneration and Nomination Committee. I wish them every success in their next challenge.”

The GDC convened the latest Dental Leadership Network to improve understanding of the systems in which the dental sector operates, from the perspective of dental professionals.

This is the third time leaders have met as the Dental Leadership Network. Attendees represent stakeholder groups across the dental professions, education and government in the four nations.

Speakers were asked to explain their organisation’s role in the systems and the constraints and opportunities to work together to effect change. Attendees were invited to suggest how they can prepare their teams for working in the various systems and how they can influence the systems in which they work.

Ian Brack, GDC CEO and Registrar, opened the event, explaining the systems the GDC operates in, the regulator’s role, constraints and opportunities being taken to make a difference, including improvements to fitness to practise and changes to international registration.

Professor Rebecca Harris, Deputy CDO NHS England, explained the relationship between the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care, that NHS England is in transition, and the context of the Chief Dental Officer’s responsibilities to provide senior clinical oversight to bring consistency and clinical engagement to improve NHS dental services and oral health.

Dr Jane Luker, Postgraduate Dental Dean and Chair of COPDEND, described how training dental professionals was changing in response to their needs to provide high quality care to their patients while having access to portfolio careers and more flexible opportunities to undertake postgraduate training, against the challenges of workforce distribution and an aging population with significant oral health needs.

Stakeholders representing providers in the system joined a panel discussion to explain their role and challenges, including the falling numbers of dental technicians and the need to develop, recruit and retain dental professionals across the whole dental team, including the importance of communicating the wide range of careers available across dentistry.

A panel of early career dental professionals shared their experiences of navigating the system, how they used their networks to build resilience and confidence and overcome some of the challenges of joining the dental workforce, especially having graduated immediately after the pandemic or trained, qualified and worked outside the UK.

Dental leaders then discussed how best they can support their own teams so that they understand their organisation’s role in the system, and how leaders can find and take opportunities to influence the system.

Finally, Andrew Dickenson, CDO Wales, closed the Dental Leadership Network, reflecting on the theme and sharing his thoughts on what is needed within a healthcare system, with patients at the centre.

The objectives of the Dental Leadership Network are to share information and build relationships, create a better understanding of everyone’s remit, priorities and shared challenges and encourage collaboration and ownership to resolve shared challenges. The next event will focus on the system from the perspective of patients and the public.

The General Dental Council (GDC) has today launched a consultation on routes to registration for internationally qualified dentists and dental care professionals (DCPs).

The 12-week consultation includes a call for evidence to inform and support longer term plans to develop a comprehensive framework for the assessment of international qualifications and registration.

The GDC is proposing new rules setting out the standards and processes for the assessment of qualifications of dentists and DCPs who qualify outside the UK that are broadly in line with the current arrangements. The proposed new rules for dentists need to be in place before the current rules cease to have effect in March next year. 

The GDC is also proposing changes to the way it sets fees for the ORE, to ensure fairness in the way costs are allocated and to remove the financial constraints associated with increasing the number of ORE places.

The number of places available for the ORE Part 1 has been tripled for remaining sittings in 2023 and all sittings in 2024. Recent reforms also mean there is a larger group of potential exam providers in future. These changes, alongside proposals to move to a cost recovery basis for the ORE, mean increased exam capacity in the short to medium term.   

There are almost 13,000 (30%) dentists and just over 2,700 (3.5%) DCPs who qualified outside the UK registered to practise dentistry in the UK. Dentists who are internally qualified represented 46% of all additions to the register in 2022, and 14% of all DCP additions. They make an important contribution to the UK dental workforce.

The regulator is moving at pace to ensure it can continue to facilitate international registration while increasing the capacity of the ORE.  

Stefan Czerniawski, GDC Executive Director, Strategy, said: “The GDC is pleased to be able to launch this consultation. It is an important step towards creating a comprehensive framework for international registration that will deliver meaningful improvements to our processes while maintaining public safety and confidence. 

“We are calling for evidence and views on how we can be assured that dental professionals have the necessary level of skills, knowledge and experience required to practise dentistry in the UK. That assessment is currently done through the ORE process for dentists and an independent assessment of qualifications for other dental professionals. We have invited views and evidence on the potential future structure of the ORE and whether there is a need for a practical assessment for DCPs.”  

The consultation and call for evidence represent an opportunity to work with the GDC to shape the way it assesses international qualifications for entry to the UK registers. The deadline for responses is 23.59 on 26 September 2023.

The General Dental Council (GDC) welcomes today’s announcement from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) that standstill provisions providing for automatic recognition of European dentists’ qualifications will be retained for a further period of five years. 

Around 17% of all dentists on the UK register have European qualifications and made up 37% of all dentists who joined the register in 2022. They make an invaluable contribution to the UK dental workforce.  

Legislative reforms providing the GDC with the powers to amend rules for the registration of those who qualify outside the UK were provided just three months ago. The additional time provided by the extension of standstill arrangements will allow for modernisation and meaningful improvements to regulatory processes before additional capacity for the assessment of European qualifications is needed.  

The continuation of the automatic recognition of European dentists’ diplomas means that the process for those dentists to join the UK register will remain, including checks on language, health and character. The announcement will also reassure those who have left the UK to study dentistry in Europe that their qualification will be recognised in the UK when they return.  

While this latest extension is welcome, there are concerns about ongoing uncertainty for professionals and regulators, as the extension of arrangements is again temporary, the need for a further review yet to be determined, and the timetable for full scale reform of the GDC’s legislation remains unclear.  

Stefan Czerniawski, Executive Director, Strategy, said: “We are pleased that the Government has agreed with our arguments that the current arrangements for recognising European dental qualifications should continue for the time being. Although in the longer term we believe there is a strong argument for a single approach to international registration, now is not the time to disrupt the flow of new entrants to the UK dental workforce.”

The General Dental Council (GDC) has made it easier for dental professionals to restore their name to the registers so that they can practise in the UK.

The small but important change means that dental professionals who have been off the register for less than 12 months and have always complied with CPD, will be able to sign a declaration that it is up to date, rather than send the GDC a copy of their full CPD record.

Every year, a number of dental professionals are removed from the register if they are no longer practising in the UK, or if they have not completed their annual renewal.

This improvement should make it quicker and easier for dental professionals to restore, providing that they have always complied with the CPD requirements. The new process is already in place, in time for annual renewal for dental care professionals which starts shortly.

In the meantime, the GDC is urging all dental care professionals to log onto eGDC to check how much CPD they need to complete before they renew their registration. This can be done at any time to make sure that the minimum hours of CPD have been met. Dental professionals should get in touch with the GDC if they do not understand what they need to do.

The GDC’s primary purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of the public and maintain public confidence in dental services. To achieve this, we register qualified dental professionals, set standards for the dental team, investigate complaints about dental professionals’ fitness to practise and work to ensure the quality of dental education.

CPD is about keeping professional skills and knowledge up to date and is a vital part of being a member of the dental team. It ensures that dental professionals instil public confidence and have the tools needed to meet and maintain high professional standards.

Jon Harris, GDC Associate Director, Registration, said: “I’m pleased that we’ve been able to make this small but important change to our process. We hope it will make a real difference for dental professionals who have always complied with and kept their CPD up-to-date, and result in a more straightforward experience to be restored to the register.”

The General Dental Council (GDC) has today published its latest round of research into the public’s views and experiences of dentistry, which encompasses views on a range of issues, including use of and access to services, affordability, and confidence in dentistry.

The research shows that in 2022 there was a significant increase in the number of people seeing a dental professional compared with our previous round of research in 2021, with most respondents saying they were satisfied with the care they received. However,  some people continued to experience issues in accessing dental care, particularly on the NHS, and our findings also show that the proportion of respondents accessing private dental services has risen since our last study.

The research shows that around a quarter of patients are making an active choice to reduce their dental care due to concerns over costs. Those who are struggling with the cost of living may be more likely to visit a dental professional when they are experiencing a problem or know they need treatment, rather than for check-ups and prevention.

In terms of public confidence, while two thirds of respondents said they were confident in the quality of dental services (should they need them), there was less confidence in being able to access dental services, with under two fifths confident of being able to access services when needed.

GDC Executive Director, Strategy, Stefan Czerniawski, said: “This research provides a rich and detailed picture of public experience of accessing and receiving dental care. Although more people report having had dental treatment than in previous years, the research highlights continuing difficulties in accessing dental services, and a lack of public confidence in getting appointments when they are needed. The issues highlighted by the research are not new or unexpected – but they do demonstrate the challenges still facing dentistry and the need to make progress in addressing them.”