637 more dentists leave register in 2015
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- Published: Monday, 12 January 2015 08:01
- Written by News Editor
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The General Dental Council (GDC) has released figures showing that 2,092 dentists did not renew their registration in January this year. This compares with 1,455 at the same time in 2014. William Moyes, GDC chairman, marked the New Year with a letter to registrants, defending the stance he has taken.
Some of this increase (of 637) of dentists not renewing their registration is most probably due to the increase in Annual Retention Fee (ARF) to £890. But while admitting that the decision to raise the ARF was controversial, but Moyes was in no doubt that it was right.
He said it was clear to the Council early that four years of no increase in ARF had left the organisation under-resourced to manage a workload of Fitness to Practise (FtP) cases ‘that had more than doubled in those four years and was continuing to increase rapidly’.
He said that without the increase, the GDC would not have been able to deliver its statutory responsibility to protect patients. Moyes continued by saying they have to deal with cases as quickly as is consistent with a fair outcome, and “we have to give both parties proper opportunities to present their cases”. This was the reason he said why the GDC had invested substantially to clear the backlog of cases that had built up, by recruiting new teams of caseworkers. They had also overhauled completely their training and performance management of FtP staff, and upgraded their IT systems.
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