With the General Dental Council’s (GDC) annual renewal process for dentists now open, the British Dental Association (BDA) has encouraged registrants to take part in the voluntary collection of workforce data to help provide a clear picture of the crisis facing NHS dentistry.
Dentists will need to renew their registration by December 31, 2023. As part of this year’s renewal, the GDC is, for the first time, asking registrants to voluntarily complete a small number of additional questions about the work they undertake.
The BDA believes this process has scope to give the clearest impression of the challenges facing the dental workforce, UK-wide. The regulator has given reassurances that the data will not be used to identify individuals, and data will be published anonymously. DCP data collection will coincide with their registration cycle in July.
Eddie Crouch, BDA chair, said, “We have long argued that there should be better workforce data given the wholesale inadequacy of the information currently available. The GDC is the logical organisation to undertake this work, given its regular interaction with all registrants.
“This is purely voluntary, and we’ve received explicit assurances that all responses will be anonymised.
“At present, ministers can’t tell where the real ‘dental deserts’ are. We would encourage all dentists to participate so we can provide the clearest picture of the crisis this service faces.”