GDC’s Radical Plans For Regulatory Reform Are At An ‘Advanced Stage’
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- Published: Friday, 01 April 2022 05:52
- Written by Chris Tapper
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An investigation by GDPUK has revealed that the General Dental Council’s plans for its own regulatory reform appear to be at an advanced stage.
As revealed by GDPUK last month, the GDC has been examining its own Fitness to Practise (FtP) procedures and has made comparisons with other UK medical professional regulators.
Two Freedom of Information requests by GDPUK have revealed that the dental regulator has been investigating new methods for accelerating the bogged-down FtP process. One dental indemnity company has labelled their proposals as ‘alarming.’
Last year, the GDC called for faster regulatory reform and it appears that the regulator has been preparing for a radical makeover of its FtP hearing procedures for at least three years.
This article was first published on April 1st.
The first FOI request shows that since March 2019, the GDC has been in contact with a data analysis company in the United States which advises the US Department of Justice on the likelihood of recidivism by individuals due for parole after extended periods in jail.
The company - RecoGnition®, based in Cupertino California, analyses data collected on individual offenders and also carries out a meta-analysis of the rates at which prisoners that carry out specific crimes go on to reoffend. The company claims to have a 94% success rate in predicting which offenders are likely to commit repeat offences on release from prison. Two US states - Michigan and Idaho, both use the company on a regular basis, often denying prisoners early release based on the algorithms produced.
We can exclusively reveal that the GDC has been working with RecoGnition® in order to develop a system which would advise FtP committees at the investigatory stage whether registrants would be likely to breach dental professional standards again if suspension or erasure wasn’t applied when they are found guilty.
The dental indemnity providers fear that their members would be treated more severely if those generic algorithms which have not been tested in the UK indicated that further breaches of regulation were likely.
One spokesperson for a leading indemnity company who asked not to be named told GDPUK “Potentially, this means that a dentist could be removed from the dental register completely, rather than being suspended with a review or merely being admonished. This idea is alarming. Each case must be based on evidence collected for each individual, not on an algorithm.”
The FOI response said that the GDC’s discussions with the California company were ‘exploratory’ but a request for financial details revealed that the regulator has so far spent £73,000 on fees to RecoGnition®.
A spokesperson for the GDC refused to tell GDPUK when the company’s algorithms would be introduced for use by the FtP committees, but confirmed that plans were ‘progressing.’
The GDC’s response to GDUK’s second FOI request has shown that the GDC has tacit Government approval for its plan to completely revamp the constitution of the Professional Conduct Committee (PCC), by using only members of the public to determine the outcome of hearings.
Under the proposals, the chair of the PCC will be a non-dental lawyer who will guide six lay members of the public in the interpretation of regulatory requirements.
The GDC confirmed that it will continue to carry out hearings remotely and that the lay panel will register their verdicts anonymously via an exclusive App, the results of which will then be collated by PCC officials. The resulting verdicts would then be securely passed on to the defendants using a companion App.
The regulator has also confirmed that it wishes to expand the audience for its remote disciplinary hearings and is considering levying a ticket fee as part of its aim to increase revenue. A spokesperson for the GDC said “The use of ordinary members of the public in PCC hearings is a democratic step which we feel will ensure the GDC is fully transparent.”
When challenged over the suggestion that the companion App could be misused as a means by which the GDC would be able to deliver electric shocks to the genitals of defendants using the bluetooth enabled mandatory tagging device the spokesperson said “A moderate to severe tingling in the nether regions is the worst that a dentist who for example applies Glass Ionomer to the same deciduous molar for the second time in any accounting period could expect to receive.”
The spokesman did though go on to say that "Dentists persistently claiming for the provision of hard acrylic bite appliances in the last two weeks of March will relinquish their right to generate progeny which will be confirmed by the smoke that will surely emanate from their scrubs’.
Image and Factual Inaccuracies provided by Vivian Stan Russell.
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