Dentistry.co.uk is absolutely appalled at recent news from the General Dental Council.
The proposals to increase the annual retention fee (ARF) by 64%, a figure so much higher than the current rate of inflation, is embarrassing.
If that was not enough, readers of a nationally distributed publication, the Saturday Daily Telegraph, were encouraged to officially complain about their dental treatment directly to the General Dental Council.
Outrage in the profession is ubiquitous.
Comments on social media, telephone calls and letters have increased tenfold in response.
The British Dental Association has been very active in criticism, as have many other organisations.
And the General Dental Council has had problems recently with its own compliance and key performance indicators.
The General Dental Council has been struggling to cover the burgeoning cost of hearing fitness to practise cases.
In the last few years, the General Dental Council, has gone through huge structural changes in the post-Lockyer period.
No longer interested with self-regulation, the organisation now has a majority of lay people on the council and a new focus, protecting the money is its number one and primary function.
There are many initiatives in the profession that have been born out of frustration at the increase in fees and the extra ordinary effort to protect the public by advertising for complaints.
There is a heavily signed petition and even calls for the General Dental Council to be disbanded.
But Dentistry.co.uk and Dentistry magazine is a practical magazine, and today starts the campaign to call for reforms of the General Dental Council.
The GDC reform campaign aims to highlight the problems at the General Dental Council for the sole purpose of finding a solution to the problems.
The campaign is calling for each and every dentist, associate, hygienist, dental therapist, lab technician, dental nurse, receptionist and the cleaner, to give your opinion on how the General Dental Council should be reformed to fix the problems below.
Here are the problems:
- The General Dental Council cannot afford to pay to hear the cases
- The number of cases reaching fitness to practise hearings is too high and the wrong types
- The early resolution system/arbitration is not effective
- Huge backlog of cases
- There is not enough representation from the profession on the council
- The General Dental Council is overstepping fair boundaries wasting registrants’ money (the Saturday Daily Telegraph advert).
We are looking for solutions to one or all of the six points here.
Dentistry.co.uk is running a video blog of opinion on how the General Dental Council should be reformed.
We are inviting the great and the good and those on the firing line to give their opinion on how the General Dental Council should be reformed.
Tell us today how the General Dental Council should be reformed.
- By telephone: 01923 851750
- By email: [email protected]
- By Twitter to @FMC_julian or @dentistry
- By Facebook at www.facebook.com/dentistryuk
- Or add your comment below.
Use the hashtag #GDCreform to get your points across.
Submit your 30-second video to [email protected].
Keep up-to-date on everything happening with the GDC reform at www.dentistry.co.uk/gdc-reform-news.
