ARF consultation response

The GDC has justified the unprecedented scale of the increase in the ARF primarily on the basis of the increase in the number of ‘complaints’ that it has to deal with. In calculating its likely operating costs, the GDC has also predicted that this volume of incoming ‘complaints’ will continue to rise for the foreseeable future, and appears to have assumed that the number of Fitness to Practise (FtP) investigations will need to rise at least in proportion to this. The only conclusion that one can draw from this is that the GDC sees no need for any reassessment of its approach, and no potential for improving what has become an increasingly dysfunctional and unnecessarily costly system.

Dental Protection fundamentally disagrees with the GDC’s flawed starting position. In explaining Dental Protection’s concerns, Kevin Lewis, dental director commented:

“The GDC has not been entirely transparent in its public statements, to some extent reflected in the consultation document, as regards the growth in ‘complaints’. It would be more accurate and less misleading to refer to the number of matters reported to the GDC. It is inappropriate to imply that these matters are mostly, or wholly complaints initiated by patients about the quality of the care and treatment they have received. Individual pieces of information which reach the GDC are very often not complaints at all, but matters which can and should have been acted upon by other parties or organisations. They become Fitness to Practise matters by default.