BDA calls for investigation of GDC’s competence

The British Dental Association (BDA) has stepped up its recent criticism of the General Dental Council by calling for a government investigation into its competence.

A recent poor appraisal of the regulator's performance by the Professional Standards Authority has prompted the BDA to urge health secretary Jeremy Hunt to conduct an official inquest into the credibility of the GDC.

The BDA recently slammed the GDC's new chair Bill Moyes for publicly drawing unhelpful comparisons between the dental and retail sectors, while in the past it has strongly disagreed with the council's decision to introduce direct patient access to dental hygienists and therapists.

In its new letter to Mr Hunt, the association also highlighted the dental community's outrage over a proposed 64 percent hike in the annual GDC retention fee, stating that it does not believe a cash injection alone would be enough to correct the regulator's "inefficiency and mismanagement".

Mick Armstrong, chair of the BDA's principal executive committee, said: "We are deeply concerned that the GDC is disconnected with the profession it seeks to regulate and ignorant of the real dynamics of the profession."