Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

Feb 11-17, 201322 Practice Management United Kingdom Edition T hat dentists are as hu- man as the rest of us and that some of them some- times do bad things is evidenced by the regular notices of erasure issued by the GDC. In recent weeks a dentist was struck off because he ‘failed to keep ad- equate records’. Another was sentenced to seven weeks in prison for continuing to work after being struck off. Another was struck off for poor treat- ment and yet another for seri- ous breaches of conduct. Of course, dentists not only have the GDC looking over their shoulders but now also the Care Quality Commission. The CQC has the power to close down a service. It has closed a number of care homes and several more have closed voluntarily following a critical report by a CQC inspec- tor. It cancelled the registration of a practice in Dudley in May last year and there was an (unnamed) practice in the north west of Eng- land that closed after the PCT withdrew its NHS contract follow- ing a critical CQC inspection. In a statement made in June 2011 following rumours that the CQC had closed some den- tal practices, it said: ‘We do have the power to close down a ser- vice; however this would only be required in the most serious of cases, and would need to take into account the effect of not having these services available for the people who use them. It would be unlikely we would need to do this in a dental setting.’ Something to worry about? While I’ll be using this article to highlight some of the conse- quences of non-compliance on the basis that it’s good to under- stand the seriousness attached to the rules and regulations we have to deal with, my intention is not to be alarmist. Let’s deal with the GDC first. Registered dental professionals are expected to follow the GDC standards, pay the annual reten- tion fee on time, maintain their CPD, have professional indem- nity cover and report breaches of standards. The GDC will investi- gate if it is told by the police that you have been cautioned about or convicted of a criminal offence, if your professional conduct is called into question and if health problems or poor performance may put patients at risk. The GDC has different com- mittees to deal with these matters – a Professional Conduct Commit- tee, a Health Committee and an Interim Orders Committee. Most hearings of these committees are held in public and in the case of a Professional Conduct Committee hearing only, information about the dental professional and al- legations are issued in advance. The committees’ decisions and any sanctions imposed are made public. Details of hearings for the past five years are shown on the GDC website and at the time of writing there have been 183 Professional Conduct Commit- tee hearings. Just more than 100 dentists were struck off (‘erased’ in GDC terminology). Other out- comes included suspensions and reprimands or, quite often in the case of Health Committee hear- The consequences of non-compliance Forget just standing on the naughty step, there can be harsh penalties for not complying with rules and regulations as Amanda Atkin explains