Health regulator’s failure

09 December 2014
Volume 30 · Issue 5

MPs are set to debate the performance of the General Dental Council (GDC), the regulator for dentists and dental care professionals, just days before the it is due to defend itself in the High Court. 

The British Dental Association (BDA), which has initiated Judicial Review proceedings against the GDC, has welcomed the news.

The BDA has been fighting to prevent the regulator implementing a staggering £45m increase to the fees levied on the dental profession. The regulator has been criticised by Parliament and the Professional Standards Authority.

The BDA has called on government to recognise the scale of the crisis in healthcare regulation and honour pledges for reform.

Mick Armstrong, chair of the British Dental Association said “The General Dental Council has failed patients and practitioners alike. We’ve seen people left in limbo for over 18 months waiting for their cases to be dealt with, and hearings that cost up to £78,000. The GDC has lost sight of its principle task to protect patients, and lost the trust of the dental profession. It’s only right that MPs are giving this matter proper scrutiny.

“Britain has over a million regulated healthcare practitioners, serving tens of millions of patients. And frankly they all deserve better. David Cameron called for action on the ‘outdated andinflexiblelaws applied by our regulators. We are calling on government to honour that pledge.”

Background

Adjournment Debate: Performance of General Dental Council, Westminster Central Hall, 11am, Tuesday December 9 2014

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/commons/speakers-office/wadjourns1/

The debate is open to the public and the press.

For comment or further background please phone the BDA on 0207 563 4145/46 or email mediaprandparliamentary@bda.org.

The General Dental Council: Failure in the spotlight

  • The General Dental Council (GDC) is the statutory body responsible for regulating dental professionals in the UK. The GDC has been accused of breaches of the Data Protection Act and misleading parliament with inaccurate performance data.

 

  • The GDC is currently the subject of a Professional Standards Authority (PSA) enquiry into the way it deals with whistle blowers. Another one was conducted last year into inappropriate processes within its Investigating Committee. It failed to meet two out of five standards for registration, and six (possibly seven) standards out of ten for Fitness to Practise (FTP) in the PSA’s last annual performance report. The GDC has been criticised, by the PSA and by the profession, for not progressing FTP cases more swiftly, resulting in a large backlog and some cases taking in excess of 18 months to go to a hearing.

 

  • The GDC have suggested the cost of an average FTP case reaching hearings in 2013 was £78,000. FOI requests have shown this is based on the 160 cases that reached its Practise committee, at a total cost of £12.4m.

 

  • GDC Chair Bill Moyes took up office a year ago and has repeatedly stated his intention to substantially broaden the remit of the regulator well beyond the statutorily defined boundaries.

 

  • The GDC has lost the trust and confidence of the profession. A survey of BDA members took place in July 2014. Nearly 6000 members, or 42 per cent of those invited to take part, responded. It indicated that 79 per cent of members are not confident that the GDC is regulating dentists effectively, and that 66 per cent of those who had experience of the GDC’s Fitness to Practise function rated the function fairly poor or very poor.

 

Political inertia

  • The Prime Minister, in his response to the Francis inquiry report into Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, promised action to "sweep away our outdated and inflexible framework" facing healthcare regulators.
  • In the command paper Enabling Excellence, published in 2011, the government acknowledged that the current legislative frameworks for all of the health and social care regulators are "expensive, complex and require continuous government intervention to keep them up to date”.
  • The Law Commissions of the four UK nations were tasked with compiling a Draft Bill on Health and Social Care Regulation, with the expectation of sweeping reform across all healthcare regulators. Published in May 2014, it did not feature in the June 2014 Queen’s Speech.

 

The BDA’s High Court Challenge

 

  • The GDC held a consultation during the summer of 2014 over its intention to increase the professional annual retention fee for registration by 64 per cent to £945, making it the most expensive regulator in the UK.

 

  • The Annual Retention Fee (ARF) is the fee that dental professionals pay to be registered and practise dentistry lawfully. Based on advice from Queen’s Counsel, the BDA believes that the consultation, and subsequent decision, were so flawed as to be unlawful.
  • The BDA is therefore challenging the GDC’s consultation and the Council’s subsequent decision and regulations of October 30 2014, to increase its retention fee by 55 per cent to £890, and has been granted a ‘rolled up’ judicial review, with the case being heard on December 15 2014.

 

  • Over the GDC’s three-year budget period the original proposal would have cost the profession an estimated £45m and the fee decided upon will still cost the profession £37.6m.