GDC starts new way to deal with patient complaints
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- Published: Thursday, 29 September 2016 07:45
- Written by News Editor
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A new process of dealing with concerns has been introduced by the General Dental Council (GDC) to encourage resolution between the dental professional and the patient. Each year, the GDC receives hundreds of concerns that could be resolved locally without it becoming a fitness to practise case if there was an agreement in place. The new process is known as GDC NHS concerns handling.
Commenting on the new approach, Jonathan Green, Director of Fitness to Practise at the GDC, said: “For too long, the GDC has been using its resources to investigate lower level concerns which could be resolved if there was a system in place to deal with them. Where it is appropriate, I want to encourage local resolution of concerns wherever possible. This is in the best interests of patients and the dental profession and makes the best use of the NHS performance management framework.
“Using local remediation to address performance issues where the person’s ability to carry out dentistry is not in question, saves the dental professional from going through a stressful and costly fitness to practise process when it is not necessary. This ensures our resources are focused on cases where patients are at risk and where there is a potential case to answer at a fitness to practise hearing.”
The new approach follows a pilot last year with the majority of NHS England’s Regional Teams. When a concern is sent to the regulator which does not significantly impact on a dental professional’s ability to practise dentistry, but falls into one or more of the referral criteria, there is an agreement that it will be referred to the NHS to resolve.
This will be either through the performance teams or through a formal complaint if the patient decides this is the best option. Such examples of low-level concerns include:
- single, isolated incidents where there is not a pattern of repeated behaviour;
- evidence of poor communication between the dental professional and the patient;
- evidence of poor record keeping; and
- where the dental professional has failed to adequately explain dental charges.
The process will encourage an early conversation between the NHS and the patient to enable a more adequate assessment of which is the most appropriate organisation to investigate the concern. This will allow the GDC to focus its resources on cases involving serious performance issues or investigating allegations of misconduct when someone’s clinical ability, attitude or behaviour results in either harm to a patient or where the risk of harm is significant.
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