New guidance from the GDC on how Council members, staff and others acting on behalf of the Council should manage their interests when undertaking their GDC roles comes into effect on 1 July 2007. It is the first time in the UK dental world that a document on managing interests has been published.

The new guidance, Principles of managing interests, is a special edition in the Standards for dental professionals series. Its purpose is to remind each person involved in Council business of the need to question whether any of their interests may have an inappropriate influence on decisions that they make.

The GDC will keep a central register of the interests of members of the following groups:

• Council, all GDC committees and working groups;
• the Fitness to Practise Panel;
• Council-appointed inspectors and assessors; and
• the Chief Executive and Registrar and other member of the Executive Management Team.

As well as helping to avoid potential conflicts of interests, the register can be valuable tool in helping ensure a person’s experience and background is drawn upon in the GDC’s work.  

The register of interests will be publicly available at all GDC meetings and will be published on this website.

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For media enquiries, please contact Rachel Lea on 020 7009 2782.

Note to editors:
1.  The guidance Principles of managing interests is available
      on this website.