Dental Professionals Are More Than Four Times More Likely To Whistleblow
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- Published: Tuesday, 28 September 2021 07:42
- Written by Chris Tapper
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A new report shows more dental professionals blew the whistle on their dental colleagues than medical registrants did on their colleagues.
The ‘Whistleblowing Disclosures Report 2021’ has been released by the UK’s healthcare professional regulators.
Eight regulators including the General Dental Council (GDC) and General Medical Council (GMC) have been required to publish an annual report on the whistleblowing disclosures made to them, since 2017.
The new report covers the period 01 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.
The GDC’s report showed that in the twelve month period, it received twice as many whistleblowing disclosures than the GMC.
The GDC received100 whistleblowing disclosures, compared to just 43 received by the GMC.
A comparison of the numbers of GDC and GMC registrants show that the number of whistleblowers in dentistry are disproportionately much higher than in medicine.
Dental professionals are almost four times more likely to make whistleblowing disclosures.
The report showed that both regulators took ‘regulatory action’ in the majority of instances in which it received whistleblowing information.
Regulatory action includes referral to Fitness to Practise teams, opening an investigation or imposing registration and enforcement actions. Regulatory action also includes giving “Advice or guidance to the discloser, employer, education body or any other person or organisation.”
The GDC took regulatory action in 93 of the 100 whistleblowing cases reported to them.
The GDC closed four cases with no action taken. These cases applied to disclosures that had been identified as ‘qualifying whistleblowing disclosures’ but it was found that no regulatory assessment, action or onward referral was required.
The GMC took regulatory action itself in 41 of the 43 disclosures made to it, while two were referred to an alternative body and regulatory action taken.
The GDC referred three cases to an alternative body.
On its website, the GDC said “The number of disclosures the GDC received this year has reduced to 100 from 116 received last year. All these disclosures were made directly to the Fitness to practice team.”
There was no breakdown of the categories of dental professionals who made disclosures to the GDC, whether dentists or Dental Care Professionals.
Of the eight regulators, the GDC received the second highest number of whistleblowing disclosures.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) received 192 disclosures, with all 192 being subject to regulatory action.
The GDC said “Our aim in this report is to be transparent about how we handle disclosures, highlight the action taken about these issues, and to improve collaboration across the health sector.”
The GDC said it believed the reduction in whistleblowing disclosures from the previous year was “Partly as a result of COVID-19, as the provision of dental services was significantly impacted by the pandemic, with fewer people visiting their dentist.”
“However, we have also seen an increase in whistleblowing complaints raising concerns related to the pandemic, such as allegations of not using PPE or inappropriate use of PPE, poor cross infection procedures and not adhering to social distancing rules.”
The report said “On April 1 2017, a new legal duty came into force which requires all prescribed bodies to publish an annual report on the whistleblowing disclosures made to them by workers.”
“The aim of this duty is to increase transparency in the way that whistleblowing disclosures are dealt with and to raise confidence among whistleblowers that their disclosures are taken seriously.”
“Producing reports highlighting the number of qualifying disclosures received and how they were taken forward will go some way to assure individuals who blow the whistle that action is taken in respect of their disclosures.”
This Whistleblowing disclosures report 2021 was published jointly by the GDC, GMC, NMC, the General Chiropractic Council, General Optical Council, General Osteopathic Council, General Pharmaceutical Council and the Health and Care Professions Council.
You can access the full Whistleblowing disclosures report here.
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