GDC Research Standards?
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- Published: Thursday, 08 August 2024 10:12
- Written by Peter Ingle
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It is barely two months since GDPUK reported on a ‘forgotten‘ piece of GDC commissioned research which had cost registrants nearly £200,000. Its primary purpose appeared to have been to deflect criticism of the GDC‘s lack of improvement in their Fitness to Practice process.
More recently GDPUK reported on the GDC’s latest research. This survey appears of questionable relevance to its statutory role as regulator, and the GDC’s own summary offered no new insights. Despite this, it is revealing to look at the general standard of the actual paper, since this work was commissioned and published by the organisation that sets and judges the standards dental teams must follow.
This latest survey, commissioned form Community Research Ltd followed similar ones in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The online survey was conducted with a sample of 2,415 respondents who were drawn from the GDC Patient and Public Panel. This in turn is provided by Panelbase, a company who describe themselves as: “an online research panel which rewards members for participating in market research surveys.”.
In the executive summary, only a small fraction comes under the heading “Complaints and regulation”. The majority relates to issues of access and affordability over which the GDC has little influence. In terms of public awareness 16% of respondents said they had definitely heard of the GDC before completing the survey, and 27% thought they had done so, whilst 48% had not.
These figures were very similar to those in all three previous surveys. Of those who had heard of the GDC, 13% were very confident and 45% were fairly confident that the organisation was regulating dentists and dental care professionals effectively.
It is not just patients that are confused by the concept of registration. Reading the report, Eddie Crouch observed there was a lack of understanding that across the four nations, it does exist in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. Reading on, the BDA Chair spotted reference to a patient paying into a plan for access but with no treatment included, something this most experienced practitioner had not heard of. The quote from a man paying £170 for NHS treatment and then asked for an extra £60 for a guarantee also left him puzzled.
In contrast elsewhere there was also reference to people who “had been removed from their dentist’s books for not going regularly enough,” and then reference to a respondent described as Female, 25-34, North-West.
Eddie Crouch’s comments shed light onto another odd characteristic of this piece of work- described by the GDC as research. By some means 10 of the respondents were picked out for long interviews and selected summaries added into the report. Those interested in genuine research might ask what this kind of carefully curated anecdotal material has to offer serious analysis.
Historically only 50% of the population have been regular attenders, while 24% of all respondents had a dental appointment booked in the next 3 months. This might suggest that this was not a representative sample. Further the most commonly desired appointment was for a check-up. This was the case for around two-thirds (67%) of those who had tried unsuccessfully to get an appointment. Given the current determination to push through NICE recall intervals it might have been useful to know how many of these would have been deemed unnecessary.
On a final ironic note Community Research who carried out this work have as their strapline “Bringing the voices of communities into the heart of organisations.” GDPUK readers may be able to think of one community that the GDC remain eager to diminish and exclude.
GDPUK Editorial Comment: Is there a need for this reasearch when dentists know these answers already? Is there a need for registrants to pay for this activity which adds nothing that we can detect? If the GDC involved more dentists in their executive decision processes, and consulted those colleagues regularly, they would have greater insight in place of commissioning "research" that yields very little.
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