Following, what for many has been a challenging twelve months, the GDPUK team have donned their highest magnification loupes and looked into the future, to offer our predictions for the dental year ahead.
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Healthcare regulators must do more to discourage and root out feeble and vexatious complaints if faith in healthcare regulation itself is to be restored, the head of a leading dental defence organisation told a recent conference.
Read more: 'Complaints Threaten Credibility of Regulations' DDU Tells Conference
Regrettably, Dr Louis McKenzie BDS (Birm) FDS RCPS (Glasg) passed away shortly before Christmas. Numerous heartfelt tributes have poured in for this exceptional individual, there have been many meaningful conversations expressing their sadness over the loss.
What is the GDC for? This is not just a BDS exam question, but one many registrants will ask themselves. Whatever the official answer, ‘protecting the public’ must be at the heart of their mission, indeed it was at one time inscribed on the wall over reception at 37 Wimpole Street.
Newly qualified dentists would be offered a ’Golden Hello’ of £20,000 to work in areas deemed to be ’dental deserts’ if Labour wins the next election.
Another day, another headline. And once again, it’s the failings of NHS dentistry provision that’s sounding alarm bells.
Read more: NHS Dentistry At 'Most Perilous Point For 75 Years' Says Think Tank
It is the Pantomime season. Across the country, theatres full of adults and the children who have given them the cover to attend, will be cheering on the heroes and booing the villains.
The GDC itself has a regulator, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) who in their own words “protect the public by overseeing the regulation and registration of healthcare professionals".
The Government has now responded to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into NHS dentistry, held in the summer. According to the UK Parliament website the Government has accepted the “majority of MP’s recommendations on NHS dentistry”.