Dental Protection has welcomed the arrival of a long-awaited consultation on reforming the healthcare regulators, but fears reforms to the GDC will not be prioritised in the legislative timetable.
The comments follow the publication of a new consultation - Regulating healthcare
professionals, protecting the public – which sets out detailed proposals for legislative changes that will apply to all the regulators. Following the consultation, draft legislation will be bought forward to implement these changes in relation to the GMC, and these will come into force in spring 2022 - but only then will the Government bring forward legislation to implement the changes for the other regulators. It has not been decided which regulators will be next to receive legislative reform after the GMC.
Dental Protection is calling on the Government to ensure that long overdue reforms to the GDC – particularly to its fitness to practise function - are prioritised, and provide greater clarity on the legislative timetable beyond spring 2022.
Dental Director, Raj Rattan, said: “The GDC continues to be governed by the 1984 Dentists Act which, despite several amendments over the years, is outdated. The Act requires the GDC to conduct some of its operations in ways that are outmoded and not always in the best interest of patients or professionals.
“Dental Protection has long argued for reforms to the Act to enable the regulator to streamline its processes to improve efficiency, reduce the number of investigations into less serious allegations, and to require the GDC to conclude investigations in a timely manner.
“We welcome the arrival of this long-awaited consultation, and will be considering the details carefully and providing feedback with the aim of ensuring these reforms lead to tangible improvements for members.
“It will however be some time before any legislative changes come into effect for the GDC – even if the GDC was to be next in line after the GMC. This is disappointing.
“We have a real opportunity to improve the GDC’s Fitness to Practise function, but reform needs to be progressed as a priority. We hope the Government will soon provide greater certainty on this, through a more detailed legislative timetable.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
About Dental Protection
Dental Protection is a registered trademark and a trading name of The Medical Protection Society Limited (“MPS”). MPS is the world’s leading protection organisation for doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals. We protect and support the professional interests of more than 300,000 members around the world. Membership provides access to expert advice and support and can also provide, depending on the type of membership required, the right to request indemnity for any complaints or claims arising from professional practice.
Our in-house experts assist with the wide range of legal and ethical problems that arise from professional practice. This can include clinical negligence claims, complaints, medical and dental council inquiries, legal and ethical dilemmas, disciplinary procedures, inquests and fatal accident inquiries.
Our philosophy is to support safe practice in medicine and dentistry by helping to avert problems in the first place. We do this by promoting risk management through our workshops, E-learning, clinical risk assessments, publications, conferences, lectures and presentations.
MPS is not an insurance company. All the benefits of membership of MPS are discretionary as set out in the Memorandum and Articles of Association.