Less than one week to our three-year strategy consultation deadline

The deadline to respond to the consultation on our three-year strategy is fast approaching. We are seeking views about the choices we intend to make, in the delivery of our broad statutory objectives, and the consultation closes on Tuesday 30 July.

The strategy sets out a vision for the GDC to: 

• protect patients while being fair to registrants, cost-effective and proportionate: by focusing on education and engagement, supporting career-long learning and promoting high standards of care and professional conduct
• work with the professions and partners to ensure that public concerns can be addressed by the right body, quickly and effectively
• use evidence, research and evaluation to ensure enforcement is cost-effective and right-touch
• ensure its approach to regulation keeps pace with change
• continue to build on the considerable improvements it has made.

This is a key moment for dental regulation, and we are calling on professionals, partners and the public to engage and support this work.

Although we are clear that this is not a consultation on fee levels, we do recognise that those levels are determined by the costs of delivering the Strategy, and therefore we address the ARF accordingly. Due to improved financial control and cost-reduction across the organisation, and establishing greater clarity over the costs of regulating different groups of professionals, we are expecting the proposed strategy to result in a significant reduction in the ARF for dentists and a small increase in the fee level for dental care professionals.

GDC Head of Policy and Research, Rebecca Cooper, said:

"We have come a long way towards realising our goal of achieving a better, fairer system of dental regulation - as set out in Shifting the balance – but we know there is still much to do. The priorities we identified then remain very much at the core of our ambition for the next three years and this strategy sets out how we intend to fulfil our objectives over that time and the resource that will be afforded to each. This is a great opportunity to influence the GDC's direction until 2022 and we want to hear from as many people as possible."

Please read the consultation and tell us your views by Tuesday 30 July.