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Published: Thursday, 29 September 2022 08:03

Written by Chris Tapper

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In August, GDPUK reported that suspicions held by many dental registrants that the regulator was engaged in monitoring social media posts, were grounded in reality.

The revelation came after  the response to a four-year-old Freedom of Information request came to light in which the GDC said that although “It has no social media monitoring policy and we do not target individuals or individuals’ social media accounts," it does receive monitoring reports from an external firm.

The FOI request was made by Leeds-based GDP Dr Dominic O’Hooley in May 2018, but its existence was only recently highlighted on Twitter.

Dr O’Hooley had recently attempted to ascertain the costs incurred by the GDC in using the services of an external monitoring company, with a follow-up FOI request.

When Dr O’Hooley asked the GDC to reveal the annual cost of the third-party social media monitoring service, the regulator chose to side-step the question by saying “The contract has been ceased and we no longer pay for this service.”

Similarly, when Dr O’Hooley asked the dental regulator to reveal whether the cost of the arrangement is paid with money received through the Annual Retention Fee, the GDC merely referred to its previous answer – namely, that “The contract has been ceased and we no longer pay for this service.”

But a Freedom of Information request submitted by a GDPUK reporter before the response to Dr O’Hooley’s FOI request was made public, has now been answered by the GDC.

We asked the GDC “How much it pays annually for the provision of such (monitoring) services?”  and “How long the regulator has been using such a service?”

The GDC told GDPUK that the date the social media monitoring contract with Gorkana Group Limited began was  22nd November 2016. 

The GDC said the contract  “Ceased in May 2021,” adding  “We have not renewed our social media monitoring contract.”  The response was similar to that given recently, to Dr O’Hooley.

A GDC Information Officer wrote in the regulator’s response to GDPUK’s FOI request, “I can advise that previously the contract (sic) was for the provision of 1. traditional media monitoring and 2. social media monitoring with a combined cost of £8,330 per annum excl VAT.” 

“The contract does not provide an itemisation and therefore I cannot provide the cost of the social media monitoring aspect of it.”

The total cost of monitoring for roughly four-and-a-half-years works out at an estimated £37,485.

Although the GDC failed to answer one of Dr O’Hooley’s questions, which asked if ARF money was used to pay for the external monitoring services, in the regulator’s Annual Report and Accounts 2021 the GDC listed its income as ‘Fees’ (ARF), ‘Overseas Registration Exam’ and ‘Miscellaneous.’

It’s notable that the GDC was paying money to an external company for the provision of media monitoring services during the first year of the pandemic.

In 2020, during the dental shutdown, the GDC refused to adjust the Annual Retention Fee to help ease the financial burden of registrants, particularly Dental Care Professionals.

Under Chair Dr William Moyes’ leadership, the GDC chose not to bring in an emergency Payment By Instalment (PBI) scheme, which would have helped DCP’s when their ARF’s were due to be paid.

In May 2020, the then Chair of the British Dental Association, Dr Mick Armstrong wrote to Dr Moyes, saying “The BDA has noted with great dismay and disappointment the GDC’s refusal to support registrants with a reduction of the ARF or at least a payment scheme to allow for payments by instalments during the COVID-19 crisis.”

“Despite recognising the dire financial circumstances in which many practices and individual registrants find themselves, the GDC does not see fit to provide a token support, citing no fundamental change to the work it does and the little financial impact the move would have on registrants.”

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