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GENERAL
DENTAL COUNCIL TO GET MORE TEETH
(20 August 2004)
 Improving
protection for dental patients is at the heart of Government proposals
announced by Health Minister Rosie Winterton today. She outlined
proposed new powers for the profession's regulatory body, the General
Dental Council (GDC). Key
changes are in response to a report on private dentistry by the
Office of Fair Trading (OFT) which found that patients lack the
information needed to make informed choices about their treatment,
that patients can be confused about the cost of treatment and, should
things go wrong, procedures for dealing with complaints are inadequate.
Examples
of common complaints made by patients about private dentistry are:
-
a lack of clarity about what kind of treatments are available
on the NHS. In fact, any treatment that is clinically necessary
to improve oral health is available on the NHS. On the other hand,
cosmetic procedures, such as tooth whitening, are not;
-
that patients are not offered NHS treatment when it is available
or that they are unaware they are being treated privately until
presented with a bill for treatment;
-
that patients are not given an estimated cost of their treatment
beforehand; and
-
that no compensation payment arrangements exist for patients who
have received poor treatment because the dentist is not adequately
insured. Under the new proposals, dentists will be breaking the
law if they fail to insure themselves.
The
Government's reforms will help address problems like these. They
include:
-
a more robust 'fitness to practice regime' for dealing with misconduct
by dental professionals and new procedures to tackle poor performance.
This
will enable the GDC to investigate and take necessary steps to
deal with problems. Dentists found guilty of serious professional
misconduct will face suspension or be banned from practice;
-
the establishment of a new complaints system;
-
introducing compulsory indemnity insurance for dentists before
registration, so that dentists who are found to have harmed patients
are insured and able to pay compensation;
-
early intervention in cases triggered by a pattern of minor incidents
that individually would not amount to serious professional misconduct,
but are of concern if considered as a whole;
-
extending regulation to other professionals working within dentistry,
including dental technicians and dental nurses.
Rosie
Winterton said: "We
are determined to make sure that patients get a fair deal and clear
information when they receive dental treatment, whether in the NHS
or in the private sector. Our proposals are about assuring the quality
of care that patients receive and will provide a more robust and
effective complaints system to take early action when things go
wrong. I am grateful to the General Dental Council for their co-operation
in drawing up these proposals.
"I
also welcome the action being taken by the GDC to make it clear
that professional standards require private as well as NHS patients
to be given full information about treatment and costs before treatment
begins and that failure to do this may put a dentist's registration
at risk."
The GDC's Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) currently has five
ways of protecting the public when a dentist has been found guilty
of serious professional misconduct:
-
public admonition - an appearance in public is in itself an uncomfortable
experience and the PCC Chairman may tell the registrant that their
behaviour is regarded as reprehensible;
-
postponed judgement - the PCC finds that the dentist's behaviour
is sufficiently serious to warrant erasure or suspension, but
the Committee is prepared to give the dentist a second chance
to reform, and will postpone its decision for up to 12 months
to see whether reform has even demonstrated;
-
suspension - for any period up to 12 months;
-
erasure - when the PCC is convinced it is in the public interest
to stop the dentist from practising; and
-
immediate suspension - for public protection.
In
June 2003 the Government published its response to the Office of
Fair Trading (OFT) report on the private dentistry market in the
UK. It accepted the report's recommendations in full and announced
a Government Action Plan to implement them. More details are available
at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics2/pdf2/dentistgov.pdf
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