Last week Paul Brennan and I hosted a meeting with Tom Whiting, GDC Chief Executive, and Colin Mackenzie, Head of Nations and Engagement. Building on previous engagement with GDC, including a roundtable event last July, we centred on highlighting issues impacting most heavily on registrants in Northern Ireland. Latest discussions included the current crisis in Health Service dentistry, regulating dental tourism and workforce planning.
Under the theme of becoming a more supportive regulator, we considered it vital to take the opportunity to make GDC aware of the increasingly challenging local context in which dentists in Northern Ireland are working. Health Service dentistry has shrunk at a more rapid rate here than anywhere else in the UK; and, according to the GDC’s own figures, local dentists now have a lower level of NHS commitment than in the other nations.
We shared how the situation for salaried colleagues in Northern Ireland is no less acute. Salaried dentists in the Community Dental Services (CDS) and Hospital Dental Services (HDS) are coming under immense strain due to inadequate staffing levels, increased pressure from a failing GDS and a service which has lacked clear commissioning boundaries and matching resource with demand.
The absence of dental workforce planning being taken forward over many years is compounding the situation.
We were also able to demonstrate the leadership role which we are carrying out on behalf of the profession to press for meaningful reform across the dental system, and in supporting the profession via the work of our thriving NI branch.
We shared our CDS Workforce Roundtable Report with the GDC Chief Executive; we have also shared briefing material illustrating the present crisis in the GDS, and the absolute urgency for the Department of Health to expedite dental payment reform. And we were able to highlight specific workforce concerns impacting on HDS, as documented by our NI Hospital Dental Services Forum.
On the issue of dental tourism, we highlighted the dichotomy of legitimate practices being overregulated in their flawed designation as independent hospitals, whilst we experience a situation where dental consultations and ‘the practise of dentistry’ is being carried out illegally in hotels where neither premises or providers are Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) or GDC registered, potentially putting the public at risk.
These very concerning issues were detailed in our recent letter about dental tourism, to the Health Minister, RQIA and GDC to which we have now received the Minister’s response. According to the new GDC strategy entitled, ‘Trusted and Effective’ the regulator is in a period of transition. GDC is adamant they want to move away from being feared by registrants, to being trusted and supporting safe dental care.
For us, having an increased level of engagement with the profession’s regulator to highlight the unique Northern Ireland context is really important. As well as being more aware of our particular issues, GDC can and should use its influence to play a more supportive role on behalf of registrants, not least in relation to the limitations of the system in which dental teams are working, which can impact heavily on practitioner wellbeing.
We welcome this latest engagement with GDC at a senior level; we consider GDC has an important role to play in supporting registrants right across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, and going further in using its influence as it engages with other stakeholders to back much-needed dental system reform.