GDC's Double Whammy for SmileDirect Victims
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- Published: Friday, 22 December 2023 10:58
- Written by Peter Ingle
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What is the GDC for? This is not just a BDS exam question, but one many registrants will ask themselves. Whatever the official answer, ‘protecting the public’ must be at the heart of their mission, indeed it was at one time inscribed on the wall over reception at 37 Wimpole Street.
Historically that protection role meant that the GDC was tasked with ensuring that dentistry was delivered by registrants who had met suitable educational standards and did not exhibit unacceptable behaviours. Former SmileDirectClub (SDC) customers may well ask where their protection was. Customers of SDC have been hit with a double whammy from the organisation that was supposed to protect them.
It was no secret that many in the profession felt that there were potential flaws in the SDC model and did their best to share these concerns with the GDC. The issues were clear, and they were not about stopping progress or self-protection. The GDC itself has clear definitions of the practice of dentistry and the responsibilities that those providing it have. SDC challenged these. Beyond that there were many cases of questionable treatment planning and delivery that would normally provide Fitness to Practice (FTP) teams with pages of allegations, had they been received about a ‘normal’ registrant.
The GDC eventually produced a half-hearted statement on “direct-to-consumer orthodontics”
GDC Statement on ‘direct-to-consumer’ orthodontic treatment (gdc-uk.org) and then returned to busying itself with more rounds of consultations and cosy dental leadership network meetings. Whether this oversight was a result of the GDC’s lack of actual dental input or timidity in the face of SDC’s capable legal teams is not clear. It may be that there is still a strand of GDC thinking that follows former Chair William Moyes’ vision of a dental market comparable to that for supermarkets. In any event the GDC singularly failed to protect those many members of the public who have lost out through either the collapse of SDC or its provision of sub optimal treatment.
That is not the only way that the GDC has failed SDC customers.
Many now require remedial treatment or will want to have treatment completed. There are potentially thousands of GDP’s and Orthodontists with the ability to do this, but the GDC’s aggressive and at times vindictive behaviour towards registrants will put off some of those who might have offered to help, and in many cases add to the cost and complexity of the remedial care that those remaining can offer. It was the same ‘supermarket model’ former Chair of the GDC who amazingly claimed not to be familiar with the expression “defensive dentistry,” but it is his and the Council’s legacy to the public.
The result of this hostile environment was that very soon after the announcement of SDC’c closure, dentists were being advised to be wary of taking their patients on. In the columns of GDPUK experienced practitioners and specialists advised great caution, as did the BDA which has some searching questions for both the GDC and the CQC. Starting with a reference to SDC’s parting advice to it’s out of pocket customers, that they consult a “local dentist,” BDA Chair Eddie Crouch noted that their patients were already “looking for help.” His advice that followed, out of necessity focussed on protecting dentists from having their desire to help turned into a one way ticket to an FTP hearing.
If anyone at the GDC is capable of feeling shame then reading Eddies carefully considered statement they might realise how badly they have let patients down: “Good practice requires a full assessment by a dentist working within their competence, consent, continuing care and putting patients’ interests first. In this context we’ve told the GDC it is questionable whether the SDC business model was ever compliant with the regulator’s guidance.”
The GDC makes much of its FTP role with over 3000 hearings from 2019 to 2022. While it was busy spending a huge amount of time and money on the Williams case and backing unsuitable expert witnesses, as well as erasing desperately needed DCP’s purely for matters around their CPD declarations, including one who was just two hours late, it chose to ignore SDC. Now, as those patients seek remedial treatment, the GDC’s reputation and wretched FTP process, which has once again failed to meet the Professional Standards Authority basic minimum Standards, will limit their access to care.
At the time of writing the GDC have offered no statements, news items or blogs on the topic, it has not acknowledged the SDC collapse.
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