Education Body States - Foreign Dentist Backlog is Concerning
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- Published: Thursday, 05 October 2023 06:55
- Written by Peter Ingle
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It is nearly three months since the ambitious NHS dental workforce plan was announced. When it came to dentistry there was the “jam tomorrow” of enlarged intakes to training programmes, which would eventually add many extra dental professionals.
In the meantime, a lot of the desperately needed gap filling would come from pulling in more foreign workers. Singing from the same hymn sheet the GDC announced a significant expansion of their Overseas Registration Exam (ORE) for aspiring overseas registrants, which had been a serious bottleneck. With the suggestion that new graduates might be “tied” to the NHS meeting resistance, and large scale adoption of skill mix failing to take off, a swift injection of foreign dentists remains the most likely option to improve the access crisis.
Professionals in International Education (PIE) is an established voice in the international education sector, involving professionals, institutions and the businesses that support hundreds of thousands studying abroad every year. It publishes daily news and analysis from a global team of contributors. Their recent story about UK dentistry, carried a gloomy headline: Foreign dentist exam backlog “concerning.”
PIE observe that there is “a severe backlog of people trained in dentistry outside the UK waiting to take the national exam” and that this is “having a knock-on effect on dental practices across the country.”
The long queue of applicants trained in dentistry outside the UK, waiting their turn to take the ORE, is having a knock-on effect on dental practices across the country.
The recent move to close the dental therapist route, sometimes used as a loophole by those dentists failing the GDC’s practical part of the ORE, has added to the workforce shortage. The wait to get a place to sit the ORE, which has been running at up to three years, is “deeply concerning” according to Claire O’Leary, director of external relations and partnerships at the College of Medicine and Dentistry.
Matters had actually got worse, she said, due to a combination of reasons, including the registration exam backlog caused by the pandemic, and the closure in spring 2023 of a registration-by-application route for internationally qualified dentists. The decision to close this has “exacerbated things for international dentists who want to practice” according to O’Leary.
“This latter option afforded internationally qualified dentists the opportunity to register and practice, within the scope of a dental hygienist/therapist, whilst they waited to sit and pass their ORE or LDS. We badly need (more dentists),” O’Leary observed.
In her opinion, the combination of this and the after effects of the pandemic had made the situation worse for international dentists. To offer interim career opportunities, the College now provides additional training in Dental Nursing, which aims to ensure students “retain the opportunity to work in a UK clinical setting until they have cleared their registration exams”.
Responding, a spokesperson for the GDC had commented, “As the regulator of dental professionals, the GDC’s primary purpose is to maintain patient safety and public confidence in the dental professions,”
“In May we announced the tripling of part one places for the Overseas Registration Exam… we launched a consultation on international registration and announced an increase in part two ORE places and a significant increase in staffing.”
In a small victory, the issue isn’t affecting EU students. In June, the decision was taken to recognise EU degrees for another five years – but that doesn’t completely erase the original problem.
“Legislation was changed to empower the GDC to be able to legally recognise international degrees for EU qualifications, but there is also politics involving a possible brain drain, which would have to be navigated sensitively and appropriately.
“Part of the solution could be having more international relations and more partnerships with overseas universities,” O’Leary said. While the consultation was launched in July by the GDC to discuss how to effectively recognise international dentistry degrees, no legislative changes can be made until the current rules time out in March 2024.
As the electoral clock ticks away, the two main thrusts of the government’s often stated wish to “fix” NHS dentistry; contract reform and workforce expansion, both appear to be stalled. An outgoing Treasury minister in 2010 famously left a note for his successor saying, “I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left.” Perhaps Neil O’Brien will leaving one saying that there are no (NHS) dentists left.
The GDC’s comments, quoted above, were made to PIE, a commercial organisation with an interest in international education. However the GDC refuse to engage with GDPUK, a publication primarily used by UK dental professionals.
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