PSA report sheds further light on poor performance of GDC

Standards of practice at the General Dental Council (GDC) have come under scrutiny again following a new assessment by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).

The GDC came bottom of the overall rankings in an assessment of the performance of nine healthcare regulators carried out by the PSA, with the beleaguered dental industry body found to have failed to meet a total of seven of its standards of good regulation.

Most notably, the GDC fully met only one of the ten standards pertaining to fitness to practise and failed to meet six others, with the PSA commenting on the significant decline in its performance compared to a previous assessment carried out in 2013/14.

The GDC acknowledged its awareness of many of the issues highlighted by the report and pledged to continue its efforts to improve, saying many problems flagged up during this assessment period have since been addressed.

However, the British Dental Association (BDA) said this was further evidence of the systemic failings affecting the regulatory body at a time when its annual retention fees have reached an historic high.

BDA chair Mick Armstrong said: "It is difficult to understand how badly the GDC has to perform before someone actually intervenes."