General Dental Council Gets More Teeth, UK

New powers for the General Dental Council (GDC) to protect patients
were today announced by Health Minister Rosie Winterton.


The new powers include measures to tackle problems highlighted in a
report on the private dentistry market in the UK by the Office of
Fair Trading (OFT). Patients complained that they were not given
adequate information to make informed choices about their treatment
and often do not know how much their treatment is going to cost.


The Order, made under Section 60 of the Health Act, will allow the
GDC to establish a complaints scheme for non-NHS patients to complain
about their dental care. For example, dentists are expected to agree
a patient's treatment costs in advance. If the patient then finds
that, without their consent, the costs substantially exceed this
agreed amount, the new measures give the patient the means to
complain.


This Order will also empower the GDC to address the other concerns
highlighted in the OFT report by:


Introducing compulsory indemnity cover for dentists before
registration, so that dentists who are found to have harmed patients
are insured and able to pay compensation Safeguarding patients by
giving the GDC the power to extend regulation to other professionals
working within dentistry, including dental technicians and nurses
Modernising the Council's 'fitness to practise' procedures for
dealing with misconduct and ill health amongst dental professionals,
and introduce new procedures to tackle problems of poor performance.


Rosie Winterton said:


"These measures will make sure patients get a fair deal and clear
information when they receive dental treatment. Through these new
powers, the General Dental Council is better placed to assure the
quality of care that patients receive and provides a more robust and
effective complaints system to take early action when things go
wrong.


"Ensuring all dentists have proper indemnity cover before they can
register is an important extra protection for patients so we can
avoid tragic cases in which a patient has to sue for damages and then
finds the dentist cannot pay. We will also be extending this rule to
other health professions when we have the opportunity to legislate.


"Giving the GDC greater powers to regulate the dentistry profession
is the next step in a programme of reforms to modernise dentistry. We
are investing an extra ?368m on measures which include, recruiting
the equivalent of 1000 new dentists, introducing new contractual
arrangements for NHS dentists and consulting on a simpler, fairer
dental charging system."


Hew Mathewson, President of the General Dental Council said:


"The new powers will enable us to make significant changes to the way
we regulate the dental profession - for the benefit of all UK dental
patients and the dental professionals who provide their care. Next
year will see us introduce a new complaints scheme for patients
receiving private dental care and begin to register and regulate new
members of the dental team. We have been preparing for these
improvements for several years and are delighted now to have the
legislation to implement them."


1. NHS dentistry patients already have the means to complain under
the NHS complaints scheme.


2. For complaints cases where there has been a mix of NHS and non-NHS
work, the GDC advise that: "The private complaints scheme should
continue to deal with a complaint until it is clearly established
that it should be referred to the NHS complaints scheme."


3. While the structures for delivering the GDC's functions need to
change, it will continue to protect the public by maintaining a
register of dental professionals who are competent and fit to
practice.


4. The Government's programme for reforming the regulation of all
healthcare professionals was set out in The NHS Plan a plan for
investment, a plan for reform, which states that regulation must be
strengthened.


5. To assure the fitness to practise of dentists the GDC will have
new powers to make a dentists continued registration conditional,
e.g, conditional upon undertaking remedial training in an area where
his clinical practice was found to be deficient.


6. In June 2003 the Government published its response to the Office
of Fair Trading (OFT) report on the private dentistry market in the
UK. It accepted the report's recommendations in full and announced a
Government Action Plan to implement them. More details are available
at:dti.uk/ccp/topics2/pdf2/dentistgov.pdf


GNNREF: 118425 - Issued by : DOH Press Office