GDC Reported to Wes Streeting – By Their Regulator
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- Published: Monday, 22 December 2025 09:27
- Written by Peter Ingle
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There is one area where the GDC can be relied upon by registrants and the public. One where our regulator can be trusted to perform consistently time after time, with predictable outcomes that are all but guaranteed.
The latest report from the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) – the regulators regulator, confirms that as ever, the GDC has failed to meet all of the expected standards.
To say that the GDC have ‘form’ here, would be an understatement. They have never met all of the 18 basic and expected standards, in any of the reviews and reports conducted in the history of the PSA.
In this latest report covering 1 October 2024, to 30 September 2025, the GDC did not meet Standard 3 (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) or Standard 15 (fitness to practise timeliness)
In last year’s review for the period ending September 30th 2024, the GDC failed to meet the same two Standards.
Three days before the GDC’s latest review was published, the PSA published their review of the GMC. The doctor’s regulator passed all 18 of the standards set by the PSA.
To a casual observer, the GDC has seemed to focus a great deal of effort on the visible aspects of EDI, and it may be disappointed to see that its efforts have not been rewarded. Registrants, on the other hand, will not be surprised to read that: “By the end of the review period there continued to be a lack of explicit references to discriminatory behaviour in fitness to practise guidance and Council and Committee members had not received EDI training.”
The GDC also failed to meet Standard 15 (Fitness to Practice) yet again this year, because it is still taking too long to deal with fitness to practise cases. In what looks suspiciously like a cut and paste from any number of their previous reviews, the PSA wrote “We noted that the GDC has put in place measures to improve its fitness to practise timeliness, but these have not yet had sufficient impact on the time it is taking to reach decisions.”
Registrants might wonder just what, if anything, the PSA do with repeat offenders who keep on failing to meet the same target. The answer is that they dust off their escalation policy.
This allows the PSA to escalate “serious or intractable concerns.” This can only be used when a regulator has failed a standard for at least three years in a row, or a new serious concern has arisen. Actions taken under the process can include writing to the regulators chair, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and or the Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee.
In line with their Escalation Policy, the PSA has now written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee to provide an update on the GDC’s unsatisfactory performance, and to highlight that the GDC has once again not met Standard 15.
The letter to Wes Streeting includes the following:
“We continue to be concerned with elements of the GDC’s performance. We are particularly concerned about how long the GDC takes to progress and close complaints against registrants through its fitness to practise process, and the backlog of older cases that has now built up.”
“The GDC has not met our Standard for fitness to practise timeliness since 2017/18, despite taking various measures to try and improve its performance.”
“Additionally, the GDC now has more open cases older than 156 weeks than at any time in the last four review periods. The GDC has therefore not met our Standard relating to the quality and timeliness of investigations for the eighth successive year.”
“Delays to fitness to practise cases also have negative impacts on registrants, complainants and witnesses and present a risk to public confidence.”
“We are strongly encouraging the GDC to address our concerns about the timeliness of its fitness to practise processes and we would welcome your support as we take this forward with the GDC.”
The letter to the Select Committee is very similar and makes the same points.
GDPUK says: Does the PSA have any teeth? Yet another year, and multiple failures to manage properly. The dental profession deserves better from its’ regulator, the unelected body continues to raid the bank accounts of it registrants.
To read the full PSA report: The PSA publishes its review of the General Dental Council’s performance for 2024/25 | PSA
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