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Consultations and responses

On this page you can find details of any consultations that we are currently running, consultation outcomes and closed consultations from previous years.

You can read GDC responses to consultations by others here.

Open consultations

This consultation is on the Guidance for the case examiners and the Undertakings bank for the case examiners. The guidance has been updated with relevant case law developments and research findings. The aim of the review is to support consistency of approach and proportionality in decision making undertaken by case examiners.  In line with our organisational values, the review aims are also to support transparency about how case examiner decisions are made. By ensuring the guidance is clear and free from technical terminology wherever possible we aim to contribute to the reduction of fear about fitness to practise.

The proposed revised Guidance for the case examiners, and the proposed revised Undertakings bank for the case examiners, are available below for the duration of this consultation.

We are proposing that this revised guidance will replace the current case examiners guidance manual and case examiners indicative outcomes guidance and current undertakings bank. 

Consultation period and deadline for responses 

This 12-week consultation opened on 26 March 2026.

It will close at 23.59 on 18 June 2026.

We will be unable to consider responses submitted after that date. 

Ways to respond 

Please respond to this consultation using the online survey.

You can also submit your response by email.  Please include the name of the consultation in the subject line.

When submitting by email, please reference your responses or views using the paragraph or question numbers used in this document.   

For details of how your data will be processed and stored, please see our Privacy Notice. Information held by the GDC is subject to Freedom of Information requests, so please do not provide any information you would not want to be disclosed. 

Response to your views 

We will carefully consider all views raised during the consultation and produce a consultation outcome report detailing our consideration. The report will be published on our consultations and responses webpage. 

Consultation documents

Consultation outcomes

As part of our work to improve our fitness to practice processes, we carried out a review of the Guidance for the Practice Committees and the Condition Bank for Practice Committees.

We asked for feedback on our proposed changes to these materials in a public consultation which ran from 3 September 2024 to 26 November 2024. 

This outcome report provides a summary of the responses we received during the consultation, significant areas of feedback, and reasons for the decisions we took on the changes we made.

The updated Guidance for the Practice Committees and Conditions Bank for Practice Committees came into effect on 6 January 2026. 

The General Dental Council consulted on its strategy 2026-2028 between 29 May and 21 August 2025.

We consulted on:

  • Our vision and mission.
  • Five high level strategic objectives.
  • Priority areas under each objective.
  • The work we will do under those priorities and objectives.
  • Our expenditure plans to deliver the work to achieve the high-level objectives. 
  • Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) impacts.

We have published the outcome report on this consultation. The outcome report provides a summary of the responses received, the subsequent changes made to the strategy, and the implications for our business plan which outlines the work we intend to take forward under this strategy. It also outlines how we will respond to feedback that does not require direct changes to the strategy but will inform our ongoing work and approach.

We wanted to hear from patients and the public to help us embed the patient voice into our strategy. However, we know from previous research that public awareness of the GDC is low, and so despite running a public consultation, we would be unlikely to get many responses from patients or members of the public. We therefore did some research with our Patient and Public panel to explore public responses to some of the key themes of our proposed strategy.  We have published this research: Report on the findings from public and patient engagement.

Thank you to all who responded to our consultation.

Our final strategy has been published: Trusted and effective: A strategy for dental regulation 2026-2028.

We have published the outcome report of our consultation on the review of the Standards for Education.

We have also published the revised Standards, which is effective from the 2026/27 academic year for all UK education providers. The current version of the Standards will remain in effect until then.

The review of the Standards, which were last reviewed and published in 2015, follows the review of the GDC learning outcomes and behaviours, and the revisions reflect the developments in dentistry, the GDC’s strategic priorities, the demographic changes, and the changes in the healthcare ecosystem over the past decade.  

Thank you to all who responded to our consultation.

We have published the outcome report of our consultation on updating our Scope of Practice guidance.

We have also published the revised guidance, which is effective from 1 November 2025. The current version of the guidance will remain in effect until then.

The revised guidance does not change the scope of practice for any of the seven dental professional titles. The revised guidance is designed to provide greater clarity on existing title boundaries and to better enable dental professionals to use their professional judgement within these boundaries for the benefit of patients.

Thank you to all who responded to our consultation. We received much valuable feedback and suggestions for improvements, all of which has helped shape the finalised revised guidance.

We have published the outcome report following consultation on proposed amendments to the Specialist List Assessed Applications routes. 

We have also published revised application forms, guidance for assessors, coinciding with the updated regulations, which are effective from 1 January 2025. 

We have published the outcome report of our consultation on the Guidance on Reporting Matters to the GDC.

We have also published the guidance, which is effective from 1 February 2025. 

Thank you to all who responded to our consultation. We received much valuable feedback and suggestions for improvements, all of which has helped shape the finalised revised guidance.

We have published the outcome report to our consultation on updating the Guidance on Indemnity and Insurance. 

We have also published the updated guidance, which is effective from 12 February 2024. 

Thank you to all who responded to our consultation. We received much valuable feedback and suggestions for improvements, all of which has helped shape the finalised revised guidance.

You can find a summary of the responses we received to our consultation on our strategic plan for the next three years, and our response in our consultation outcome report.  

In May 2019, the General Dental Council (GDC) published a consultation on its proposed strategy for 2020-2022. The strategy described the organisation’s vision, values and strategic aims, and provided high-level information on the expenditure plans to support the achievement of those aims over the period.

Consulting on the new strategy marks a change in approach for the GDC. This new approach is set out in the GDC’s fee setting policy, which was consulted on in 2018, and came into effect from January 2019. It explains that we will consult every three years on the high-level objectives and associated expenditure plans that will underpin the annual retention fee (ARF).

The draft strategy set out five strategic aims, which were developed to describe the GDC’s priorities within its statutory remit. In order to deliver the necessary outcomes, the strategy also identified objectives designed to support the achievement of those aims.

The consultation, which opened on 8 May 2019 and closed on 30 July 2019, invited views on the objectives we had identified to support the achievement of the strategic aims, as well as the expenditure plans associated with them.

GDC corporate strategy 2020–2022: Consultation outcome report

 

Closed consultations

The Safe Practitioner: A framework of behaviours and outcomes for dental professional education

Start date

18 October 2022

End date

10 January 2023

Background

The GDC has a general concern to promote high standards of education, in all aspects of dentistry, and a statutory role in assuring the standard of pre-registration education and training.   Our expectations for pre-registration training of dental professionals are articulated as learning outcomes in Preparing for Practice, which was last updated in 2015. In the past several years, there have been significant shifts in society and in dentistry, which need to be considered to ensure people joining our register continue to have the right skills, knowledge and behaviours. 

Summary

We have reviewed the current learning outcomes and are proposing the following:

1. Moving away from the terms ‘safe beginner’ and ‘independent practitioner’ to the term ‘safe practitioner’ to describe newly UK qualified dental professionals

This term encompasses the most critical outcomes of pre-registration training. Please refer to sections 3.1 and 4.3 of the consultation document.

2. Introducing the concept of “behaviours” 
Behaviours will replace those learning outcomes which describe expectations around professional behaviours, values and attitudes. Please refer to section 4.5 of the consultation document.
 
3. Updating existing content and creation of some new areas
Reflecting on the impacts of pandemic, the complex environment dental professionals work within, and workplace pressures, we have revised and introduced areas of content such as managing mental health and wellbeing, recognising the impacts of EDI and environmental sustainability as a consideration when providing dental care. Please refer to section 3.3 of the consultation document.

The consultation documentation includes: 

• background and context of Preparing for Practice
• the considerations taken in the review process and changes to content proposed

• the resulting proposed Safe Practitioner Framework

Please find the frameworks which detail the learning outcomes and behaviours for each professional discipline below: