GDC publishes annual report and accounts
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- Published: Monday, 17 July 2017 07:41
- Written by News Editor
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The General Dental Council (GDC) has published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2016. Ian Brack, Chief Executive of the GDC, said: “Looking back, 2016 saw the GDC continue to improve its performance.” William Moyes, Chair of the GDC Council, said: “We improved significantly over the past few years.” Read the GDC Annual Report and Accounts for 2016 here. [This annual report is offline for editing in the week commencing 17th July 2017].
The annual report gives details of achievements and activities in 2016 and the GDC’s ambitions for the coming years as it continues with the second year of a three-year roadmap and presses ahead with improvements to dental regulation set out in Shifting the balance: a better, fairer system of dental regulation. It is published at a time of increasing challenges and uncertainty in the wider environment in which the GDC and other health professional regulators operate in is increasingly challenging and uncertain. The implications of the UK’s decision to exit the EU are still unfolding, while the health sector is working hard to deliver the best care to patients.
Demand is greater than ever and patients’ needs are becoming more complex. Questions regarding structural change are being asked across the UK, and dental professionals in England at least are also wrestling with imminent changes to the NHS contract. It is in this context that the GDC is taking forward reform of dental regulation, rethinking its processes and moving resources “upstream” with the aim of preventing harm.
This work continues apace in 2017, with an end-to-end review of our entire fitness to practise process to drive further improvements, and an online tool for the “self-filtering” of complaints to ensure the most appropriate body is dealing with concerns about dental care.
In 2016, the GDC introduced Case Examiners, who have the power to issue undertakings, meaning the GDC will be able to agree the steps that need to be taken to bring the dental professional’s practice up to the required standard without going to a full hearing, improving our ability to regulate in a proportionate way. This also achieves more efficient outcomes for patients.
By working with the NHS in England, the GDC also established an improved mechanism for dealing with patient concerns that cannot be appropriately dealt with using the GDC’s fitness to practise powers. NHS Concerns encourages more local resolution between the dental professional and the patient. Each year, the GDC receives hundreds of concerns that could be resolved locally, which we now seek to reroute to the local NHS, enabling them to be dealt with more appropriately. In 2016, the GDC has also been working with the Chief Dental Officer in Scotland, and other key stakeholders, to create one process for handling complaints about dental professionals in Scotland.
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