Latest updates from the GDC
A view from the Chair: sharing learning from equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), understanding the working patterns of dental care professionals (DCPs), and it’s close to your last chance to respond to our Corporate Strategy proposals.
The GDC’s Chair, Lord Toby Harris, welcomes the inclusion of a case study from the GDC on EDI in the Professional Standards Authority’s good practice guidance. He also highlights his championing of working patterns data for DCPs to support the sector to better understand the workforce and improve access to services.
New Chair announced
We have announced the appointment of Dr Helen Phillips as our new Chair from 1 October 2025, following the completion of Lord Toby Harris's four-year term in September 2025.
Dr Phillips brings a wealth of senior experience across a 30-year career in sectors including insurance, legal, social care and further education.
Dr Phillips outlined her vision for upstream regulation and supporting the dental professions to remain competent and confident throughout their careers:
"My ambition is that dental professionals feel a sense of pride – never fear – in being regulated by a trusted, effective, proportionate regulator that embodies our values of being respectful, transparent, inclusive and purposeful."
Dr Phillips emphasised her commitment to working with the dental professions to address systemic challenges:
"We must work collaboratively with the dental sector to make meaningful progress in addressing health inequalities and the growing problem of equitable access to dental services for all.”
Find out more on Dr Helen Phillips' appointment as the new Chair.
Annual Report and Accounts published
We have published our Annual Report and Accounts for 2024, showing a record registration performance and continued improvements to Fitness to Practise (FtP) processes.
Key developments in 2024 included enhanced workforce insights, improved access to the Overseas Registration Examination, FtP improvements and sector leadership. The report highlights the GDC’s desire to improve our digital capability and improve the experience for dental professionals accessing online services such as registration and renewal.
More on our Annual Report and Accounts.
Corporate strategy consultation: Incorporating equality, diversity and inclusion
Our next corporate strategy includes proposals to incorporate our goals for promoting EDI across all aspects of our work. We paved the way last year with our bridging strategy and are now consulting on our plans for the next three years.
Significant effort has gone into understanding the diverse needs of dental professionals and students over the past few years, but there is more to do to ensure our standards, systems and processes can meet the needs of everyone. More recent research has highlighted the need to promote sexual safety in dental workplaces, and our proposed strategy looks to establish a guidance framework that supports safe and inclusive workplaces.
The quality and scale of our EDI data in fitness to practise is improving, and our proposed strategic plans include analysing that data to explore and identify EDI related correlations and any changes over time. Our proposed plans also include hearing directly from fitness to practise participants to support mitigation of any potential bias and/or discrimination.
You can provide your feedback on our proposed plans to promote equality, diversity and inclusion by responding to the consultation on our next corporate strategy. The deadline for responses is midnight on Thursday 21 August.
Find out more about our proposed corporate strategy.
Registrar’s visit to Northern Ireland
Our Chief Executive, Tom Whiting, spent two days in Northern Ireland visiting dental professionals from across the sector. As part of his visit he met Mike Nesbitt, Minister of Health for Northern Ireland and Caroline Lappin, Chief Dental Officer for Northern Ireland.
He also visited the Northern Ireland Medical & Dental Training Agency team and two dental practices in Belfast. These included the Curran Oral Surgery practice to hear about the important oral surgery treatment provided to patients by this referral only clinic, and Bupa dentalcare on Belmont Road where he met the team and heard about the experiences of foundation dentists in their first year in practice.
There was also a roundtable discussion with people from across the dental profession on our proposed corporate strategy.
DCP working patterns analysis
We have published new inferential analysis of the DCP's working patterns that builds on the DCP data we first released in October last year. The analysis shows how DCPs work across the UK, drawing on responses from 43,692 DCPs.
This is the first set of DCP data that combines working patterns, registration information and aggregated FtP data.
The reports provide:
- Insights into employment status.
- Where DCPs work.
- Treatment delivery (NHS v private).
- The number of hours DCPs spend delivering dental care.
- Whether DCPs work in clinical or non-clinical roles.
- Variations in the workforce across equality, diversity and inclusion characteristics.
- Any correlations between working patterns questions and the incidence of FtP cases at the aggregate level.
Read the reports.