Are You Involved In A Dental Body Corporate? Have Your Say In GDC Consultation, UK

Main Category: Dentistry
Article Date: 30 Aug 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Should GDC registrants who are employed by, belong to, or are involved in, a dental body corporate be required to declare it in their practice literature?

That's the question being asked by the General Dental Council in its current consultation 'Declaration of involvement with a Dental Body Corporate'.

Following amendments to the Dentists Act in 2005, any corporate body can carry out the business of dentistry provided it satisfies certain conditions. However, the GDC believes that in order to protect patients those involved in DBCs should declare that involvement.

Subject to consultation, the GDC plans to insert a requirement into its Standards Guidance to ensure that GDC registrants disclose that they are a member of, or involved with or employed by, a body corporate, particularly as part of any complaints process. The aim is to ensure a patient has the information they need to make an informed choice and be able to pursue a complaint fully and appropriately.

The consultation period closes at 5pm on Tuesday, 11 November 2008. For more information and a copy of the consultation document, please visit our website http://www.gdc-uk.org. Responses to the proposals should be sent to dbcconsultation@gdc-uk.org.

Conditions of Board Membership under the Dentists Act are:

(1) A body corporate commits an offence if it carries on the business of dentistry at a time when a majority of its directors are not persons who are either registered dentists or registered dental care professionals.

(2) Where a person is the subject of a decision erasing his name from, or suspending him from, a register kept by any of the regulatory bodies listed in section 25(3) of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002, that person commits an offence if he is a director of a body corporate carrying on the business of dentistry at any time when such an erasure or suspension remains in effect.

General Dental Council