The GDC Standards Steamroller Pushing Forward
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- Published: Wednesday, 17 January 2024 09:48
- Written by Peter Ingle
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Readers may be aware that the GDC have begun work on an update of the Standards expected of registrants. They have been devoting a lot of time and effort to this, including a series of webinars which are open to stakeholders.
GDPUK reported on one webinar from the first series, held late last year:
GDC Working on New Standards for Professionalism
New Standards – GDC Panel Looked at Real-Life Example
A follow up second series have begun as the project progresses, and apart from covering material that is central to all dental professionals activity, they may give a useful insight into the GDC’s relationship with registrants.
The webinar lasted two hours and while repeating every detail is beyond the scope of a GDPUK feature, these news reports will aim to look at first the strategy and process, and then some of the content. The GDC are recording the series which will be available to view on their website. They have also promised to make the slides that were used by the presenters available.
Held again on Teams this webinar began with 58 participants. It is worth noting that the proportion of these shown as ‘guests’ appeared to be less than half. These would typically be drawn from practicing dental professionals who had spotted and followed up on the announcement of the webinars. Other participants, aside from the GDC team, were representatives of a variety of interested organisations, some of whom were part of an invited panel who would discuss the three parts of the presentation.
Last year, the GDC briefly broke their habit of snubbing GDPUK, to complain about our coverage of an earlier webinar. One complaint was that we presented the changes being discussed as a fait accompli. We may have hit a nerve, since in the latest webinar there were occasional references to the changes that were being discussed, not being set in stone. Nonetheless it would be a brave individual who betted against the Standards being changed in a way that looks very similar to the current GDC proposals. The Council speakers repeatedly referred to the great deal of work already done on this project. Updating the Standards been listed as part of the GDC’s programme, and at an organisational level represents an opportunity to tick a box, and claim that it is diligently doing it’s job.
The key thrust of the changes is to move from a rules based set of standards to ones which are principles based. This is not just an issue of semantics. Rules by definition make clear what is, or is not, acceptable. It is intended that the new principles will be open to some interpretation, and a dental professional’s registration may well be decided upon the finer points of how they decide to interpret these principles. This ambiguity could allow more room for flexibility and the exercise of professional judgement. But it could also greatly increase the likelihood of ending up at a Fitness to Practice hearing.
A number of times the point has been made by GDC presenters that the actual Standards registrants are expected to meet, are not changing. This then begs the question, why make a change. It is a process that everyone involved agrees will need great care.
The nagging feeling that these webinars are part of a performative process to allow the GDC to claim that it has engaged and consulted, was not entirely banished. Much had been made of these webinars allowing participation and there being an opportunity to ask questions. In practice time constraints limited questions, those that were taken, were dominated by eloquent but perhaps unrepresentative individuals who gave the impression of now being some distance from general practice. A chat column was present but questions posed in it were not responded to. The presenters ran a poll during the webinar but there were problems with it, not all participants being able to see the questions, vote, or see a word cloud that was referred to. These difficulties were mentioned in the chat, but this did not stop the presenters giving the results of the poll when it concluded, and suggests that the GDC will attach some credence to them.
A second story will look at some of the specific comments both from the GDC and its expert panel, which are likely to be of particular interest to GDPUK readers.
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