GDC decides to increase dentists’ ARF by 55% after ‘careful analysis’ of consultation

shutterstock_144288454The council of the General Dental Council (GDC) has today agreed to increase its annual retention fee (ARF) for dentists to £890 and decrease the fee for dental care professionals to £116.

This is the first increase in the ARF for dentists in four years.

The fees for 2015 are based on the ARF policy agreed by the council in June 2014.

Following this policy the fee for dentists will increases, however the fee for dental care professionals, who make up 61.1% of the profession, decreases.

The council’s decision followed a careful analysis of more than 4,000 responses to a consultation that ran for a nine week period until 4 September 2014.

In addition, the council’s decision was based on the GDC’s forecasts and budget projections for 2015 – 2017, which had been reviewed by KPMG – providing independent confirmation that the full range of underlying assumptions were realistic.

GDC chair, Bill Moyes said: ‘The decision taken today is directly related to the effective delivery of our primary duty of patient protection.

‘The additional funds that will be collected as a result will enable us to deal with the very significant increase in our fitness to practise caseload experienced over the last three years.

‘On behalf of the council I would like to thank all those who participated in the consultation leading up to this decision.’

GDC chief executive and registrar, Evlynne Gilvarry, said: ‘We will continue to seek efficiencies in the way we work but significant savings will require wholesale change of our outdated legislation.

‘We will continue to press vigorously for a completely new legal framework, and meanwhile, we are working to achieve a significant interim legislative* change, which will improve the way we deal with cases at an early stage and reduce costs.

‘In addition, as the number of complaints we receive is a key driver of costs, we are committed to examining why complaints are increasing and what we, and the dental sector, can do to reduce these.’

The new fees must be paid by dentists by 31 December 2014 and by dental care professionals by 31 July 2015.

Favorite
Get the most out of your membership by subscribing to Dentistry CPD
  • Access 600+ hours of verified CPD courses
  • Includes all GDC recommended topics
  • Powerful CPD tracking tools included
Register for webinar
Share
Add to calendar