MyGDCEngagement and influencing EDI outcomes
We regularly engage with others to ensure the work we do is fair and inclusive. We work with dental professional bodies, trade unions, indemnifiers and others to promote high professional standards in the delivery of safe and effective care. This includes meetings with representatives of groups of professionals who share protected characteristics or have shared interests, such as internationally qualified dental professionals.
We are currently in the process of establishing student, dental professional and public panels to provide views on our work and future plans. These panels are being recruited to ensure we can capture diverse perspectives and understand how policy changes or other developments may affect different groups of people with shared protected characteristics.
Working with education and training providers
We have worked with education and training providers, dental deans, trainers and dental professionals to strengthen learning in equality, diversity and inclusion for all dental students. We regularly meet with the Dental Schools Council and COPDEND on a range of education and training issues.
The work has resulted in an updated Safe Practitioner framework, which came into effect at the start of the 2025/26 academic year, and revised Standards for Education, which will come into force in September 2026.
Our Education Quality Assurance team is currently working with education and training providers to move to the updated framework and standards. The work includes agreeing what evidence can be provided to confirm compliance and the types of support we expect in support of fairness and inclusion.
Providers from across the UK shared best practice in a variety of areas at an event held in London in July, including the monitoring and assessment of professionalism, health and wellbeing pastoral support and developing cultural humility in students.
More on how education reforms support diversity and inclusion.
Dental Leadership Network
The Dental Leadership Network meets four times a year and is comprised of people who hold leadership positions in the dental profession or who have a significant impact or influence across the sector. There are currently around 100 members of the network. Event agendas are shaped by a working group made up of network members.
Previous network events include:
- Future dental team: their expectations, development and career
- Health and wellbeing leadership in the dental team
Network contributors have also shared the following posts:
- Supporting women to lead in dentistry
- The Dental Leadership Network: A view from early careers dentists
- Diversity in dentistry: a fruitful future
- Improving access to oral health and dental services for BAME communities
Working with indemnifiers and insurers
We meet quarterly with the providers of dental indemnity and insurance providers to discuss any issues relating to our casework and fitness to practise outcomes.
This work will become increasingly important as we begin work to better understand differentials in the number of concerns received about groups of dental professionals, particularly with reference to ethnicity, age and gender.
Working with employers and specialists
We are a member of Onvero (formerly the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Employers Network). It provides support to public sector organisations and helps to develop awareness, understanding and skills to promote equality and tackle discrimination.
We use Onvero’s benchmarking tool, Talent, Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation (TIDE), to assess our approach and progress on diversity and inclusion.