Court proceedings

The news comes as the BDA has announced that its application for a ‘rolled-up’ judicial review proceedings against the dental regulator has been granted. These fast-tracked proceedings will enable resolution of the case in early December before dentists are legally bound to pay their professional fees on December 31 2014.                        

Mick Armstrong, chair of the British Dental Association’s principal executive committee, said “This afternoon the GDC’s Council sat down to pick from three shades of fee hike. Over the last four months the regulator has spectacularly failed to make a case for any of the options on the table. Each of these models emerged after a car crash consultation, and we see little point in debating their relative merits. 

“The GDC steered well clear of the only tough choice in front of it: to acknowledge mistakes had been made, and to go to back the drawing board in 2015. We are not surprised by that decision, and it means the regulator will finally have to defend its shabby consultation in court.