Fitness To Practise Suicides – GDC Denies FOI Request

Fitness To Practise Suicides – GDC Denies FOI Request

The General Dental Council has turned down a Freedom of Information request asking for the number of registrants who have taken their own lives while under Fitness to Practise investigations.

GDPUK has seen a copy of the GDC’s response to the request, which indicated that the regulator was declining the request on the grounds that compliance “Would exceed the appropriate limit to locate, extract, and/or retrieve the information requested.”

By contrast, the General Medical Council published a report in March 2022 which showed that five doctors died as a result of suicide between 1st January 2018  and 31st  December 2020.

The GMC said “The data, which will now be published on an annual basis, has been introduced following a new process for obtaining and recording the cause of death of doctors who die while they are in the regulator’s fitness to practise procedures.”

The recent request was made to the GDC by consultant orthodontist Dr Farooq Ahmed.  Dr Ahmed made his request after reading another General Medical Council report which showed that between 2005 and 2013, there were 28 reported cases in the GMC’s records where a doctor committed suicide or suspected suicide while under investigative procedures.

In its response to the recent FOI request from Dr Ahmed, the GDC said “There is no requirement for the GDC to be notified if a dental professional takes their own life and, because of this, we are unable to routinely capture when this has been the cause of a registrant’s death.”

“On occasion, this information is provided incidentally by a representative of the registrant, and in those cases it is recorded on the casefile.”

“Due to the incidental nature this information is provided to the GDC, instances have not been recorded in such a way which would support automated reporting and so, to provide the information we do hold, would require an extensive manual search of all fitness to practise cases which have been closed since 2013.”

The GDC then went on to say “Section 12 of the FOI Act allows a public authority to decline a request for information where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to locate, extract, and/or retrieve the information requested.”

“The appropriate limit for the GDC is 18 hours or £450. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case.”

“We estimate that it would take at least eight minutes to review each closed case to identify whether this information had been provided. Between 2013 to 2021 there were 21,111 closed fitness to practise cases.”

“These would require 2,815 hours to review. In 2021 alone, there were 1,091 closed fitness to practise cases which would require 145 hours to review. Even if this work were undertaken, because the information is only provided incidentally, it would not provide a complete picture.”

Yet after a similar Freedom of Information request made in 2015, the GDC did provide the number of deaths of dentists that occurred during Fitness to Practice proceedings, although it didn’t limit it to those dentists who had taken their own lives.

In that instance, The GDC revealed that a total of 14 registrants had died during FtP proceedings.

The GDC also confirmed in its response dated 2016, that it didn’t have an internal reporting system such as the GMC’s Significant Event Reporting.  The GMC system records any death of a registrant whilst under a fitness to practise investigation.

After the GDC  recently declined to respond to the 2022 FOI request, stating that the estimated time to produce the information requested  “Must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case.”

The GDC went on “We understand that a fitness to practise investigation can be a stressful experience and it is our aim to support dental professionals wherever possible, particularly those who may be at risk of harming themselves.”

“Members of our team undertake training to identify potential signs of vulnerability, to react where necessary by signposting or alerting appropriate support, and to be confidently able to have conversations with people they are worried about.”

“In addition, the training enables team members to understand where small practical changes in the way a case is managed may be necessary - such as avoiding communication towards the end of the week when additional support might not be as readily available.”

In an article by Natalie Bradley in the British Dental Journal in October 2015, it was stated that between 1995 and 2011, 77 dentists died as a result of taking their own lives.

Dr Bradley wrote “We have all heard the narrative that dentistry is stressful and we as a group of professionals are at high risk of suicide. There are other occupations who are at higher risk, such as low-skilled male labourers who are three times more at risk than the average male, but the risk of suicide among female health professionals is 24% higher than the female national average.”

“Research by the BDA (British Dental Association) shows that dentistry is associated with high levels of stress and burnout, with 17.6% of dentists surveyed admitting to have seriously considered committing suicide.”

In the past 18 months, the GDC has also used the Freedom of Information Act to and time limitations to exempt itself from answering questions posed by dental practitioner Dr Dominic O’Hooley.

In 2021, Dr O’Hooley asked the GDC to provide details of investigation companies which had submitted tenders to the regulator for their services.

In that instance, the GDC cited Section 43 (2) of the Freedom Act.

The GDC said “Section 43 (2) exempts the disclosure of information which would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any individual or company, or the public authority itself.”

“We believe the release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the GDC.”

The regulator also said there was a small possibility that 116 boxes of paperwork that was not indexed may contain other information Dr O’Hooley requested , but the review of the boxes would require a manual search of the paper records.

“As we estimate this would take over 38 hours, it exceeds the cost and time limits set by section 12 of the FOA Act (i.e. £450 or 18 staff hours).”

It is understood that Dr Ahmed is planning to appeal the GDC’s decision to turn down his recent FOI request.

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Keith Hayes
FtP suicides FOI request
“We believe the release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the GDC.”
What commercial interests are there behind revealing the truth about this Regulator? I can't believe we will accept that as a reasonable excuse.
It's time to investigate the GDC.

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Keith Hayes
“We believe the release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the GDC.”
What commercial interests are there behind revealing the truth about this Regulator? I can't believe we will accept that as a reasonable excuse.
It's time to investigate the GDC.

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Michael Goodchild
It's something that you would think a caring regulator should be monitoring, as a minimum
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Keith Hayes
FtP suicides FOI request
Suggest you ask them when their last training was updated and whether all staff members receive training.
Ask why they do not signpost anxious individuals to ConfiDental, the 24/7 helpline dedicated to this purpose. If you look at the CQC Mythbuster 32, you will see an excellent piece by John Milne and he does manage to mention ConfiDental and provides a link.

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Philip Martin
Suggest referring GDC to the Information Comissioners Office for failing to comply with a reasonable FOI
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