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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

Overview

Developing our corporate strategy is the means by which we set the goals and medium-term objectives for the GDC and for the regulation of dental professionals. We review our strategy every three years to make sure that the GDC focuses its activities most appropriately to deliver its statutory objectives and adapts and responds to the changing environment in which dental healthcare is delivered in the UK.

Our strategy sets out our vision, mission and objectives, and describes the work we intend to do to achieve them. Some of this involves doing what we do now, but doing it better – with modernised systems and more user-friendly approaches. Other elements require us to think differently about how to achieve our desired outcomes, and particularly how we respond to developments and pressures in and on the sector and changes in patient needs and behaviours.

Our strategy is strengthened by scrutiny and input from all those with an interest in ensuring that professional regulation in dentistry is effective, that dentistry across the four nations of the UK continues to be delivered to a high standard and that patients can be confident in the quality of care they receive and in the professionalism of those who provide it. This consultation provides an opportunity to help shape our strategy for the next three years and we welcome and encourage responses to it.

Consultation opened

Opened on 29 May 2025.

Consultation closes

Deadline for responses is midnight 21 August 2025.

How to respond

Trusted and effective: a strategy for dental regulation 2026-2028

Please respond to this consultation by using the online form.

You can also submit your response by email, please include the name of the consultation in the subject line of your email to: [email protected]

If you would like to submit your response by post, please address it to:

GDC, Strategy Directorate, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8DQ

Responding to your views 

We will respond to views raised during the consultation by producing a consultation outcome report, which we will publish on our website.

How we will use your response

You can find out more about how we collect, store and process information in our Privacy Notice.

Consultation outcomes

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: