<p>Our main purpose is to protect patients.  A key part of this is setting and quality assuring educational standards that professionals have to meet to join the register. These standards are set out as learning outcomes.
 
Welcome to the learning outcomes survey.  The GDC would like to hear your views on the new learning outcomes that we are developing to prepare students for practice as a registered dental professional.  The outcomes aim to provide clarity about what a newly registered dental professional needs to know and do to begin practising. The model and content we have produced reflects a flexible, outcomes based approach which we think will best allow the education and training providers to innovate and promote excellence from the position of a common core.  We hope such a model can provide a framework to improve patient care and increase public confidence in the profession.  We want your feedback and encourage all our stakeholders to engage in making this system work for patients and registrants. 
 
There is both a full publication and a summary table containing these learning outcomes to look at, along with a short series of questions on how successfully you think we have met our aims:</p>
<ul><li>how well the needs of patients are met; </li>
<li>how well students are prepared for practice ; </li>
<li>how clearly the outcomes have been written for education providers.</li></ul>
<p>We would like to emphasise that the learning outcomes are draft at this stage and there is scope for further change.</p>
<p><a title="Opens in new window" href="/Aboutus/Researchandconsultations/Documents/Draft%20learning%20outcomes.pdf" target="_blank"><img width="16" height="16" class="ms-asset-icon ms-rtePosition-4" src="/_layouts/images/pdf16.gif" alt=""/>Draft learning outcomes</a> (442KB, PDF) </p>
<p><a title="Opens in new window" href="/Aboutus/Researchandconsultations/Documents/Learning%20outcomes%20summary%20table.pdf" target="_blank"><img width="16" height="16" class="ms-asset-icon ms-rtePosition-4" src="/_layouts/images/pdf16.gif" alt=""/>Learning outcomes summary table</a> (A3 print size, 666KB, PDF) </p>
<p>The following areas are not included in the consultation:</p>
<ul><li>Timescales for implementation will be consulted on separately with education providers; </li>
<li>Quality assurance – a new quality assurance policy for education providers will be developed and consulted on separately once the draft outcomes have been approved.</li></ul>
<p>We welcome feedback on the issues raised in this document from all interested parties. It would be helpful if you focus on the key questions raised in the consultation document. There is no obligation to answer all the questions, just those you have an interest in or that are relevant to your experience.​</p>