Monitoring Report - General Dental Council 2023/24

We have published our most recent report for the General Dental Council (GDC).

Key statistics

• The GDC regulates dental professionals in the UK
• There were 123,444 dental professionals on the register as at 30 September 2024

Key findings and areas for improvement

Standard 3 on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The GDC did not meet Standard 3 because we did not have sufficient assurance that it was meeting three of the four outcomes that we require under our new approach to this Standard. 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.

Registration

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 will expect it to continue to improve its performance in processing applications.

Fitness to Practise timeliness

The GDC did not meet Standard 15 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.

Education and training

The GDC met both of our Standards for education and training. It has a lot of activity planned or underway in this area and we heard a range of views from stakeholders. We will look closely at its education work as part of our periodic review next year.