He said, “Fundamental reform and modernisation to health professional regulation is overdue – and would benefit the public by delivering a more effective and efficient system. The General Dental Council welcomes the Department of Health consultation as a step towards this aim, but in the absence of firm legislative plans, reform within the existing legislation needs to be at the centre of proposals for change.
“The GDC has set out how we intend to reform dental regulation, detailed in ‘Shifting the balance: a better fairer system of dental regulation’, which was published in January. Crucially, our reform plans are not dependent on legislative change and we are pressing ahead with our proposals, working collaboratively with our partners to develop a model of upstream regulation that involves professionals and their regulator working together in the interests of patient safety and public protection. We will publish our next steps for this reform programme in November.”