Response to the General Dental Council's ‘Shifting the Balance’

GDC proposals

We welcome the opportunity to comment on the GDC’s discussion document, ‘Shifting the Balance’. The document lays out an ambitious set of proposals to ensure dental regulation is fit for the future by modernising GDC processes and ensuring that the GDC works more effectively with other stakeholders who also play a role in public protection and in supporting registrants.

We support the GDC’s view that the current legislative framework for health and care professional regulation is outdated and does not support an efficient, effective system for protecting the public. As we highlighted in Rethinking regulation, the current system needs reform so that it better supports patients, professionals providing health and care and is simpler for other stakeholders, such as employers and the public, to navigate.

Relation to wider reform

Whilst we remain hopeful that the Government will go ahead with reforms to the legislative framework, we recognise the GDC’s desire to proceed with their own programme of changes rather than waiting on wider reforms, for which there is no firm timetable. We welcome the frankness with which the GDC has addressed the challenges inherent in their current process. In the absence of wider reform, we are supportive of regulators considering ways to improve their processes, however would highlight the need to ensure a clear focus on core objectives and to respect the boundaries set by their current legislation and existing case law.