Our three-year strategy consultation is now closed

The consultation on our three-year strategy,  Working with the dental team for public safety and confidence, has now closed and work is underway to analyse the 79 responses we received from individual dental professionals and stakeholder organisations. Through the consultation, we were seeking views about our proposals for how we intend to deliver our broad statutory objectives over the next three years, as well as the associated costs.

We wanted to be clear that this was not a consultation on fee levels, but we were also keen to raise awareness that the level of the ARF is intrinsically linked to the costs of delivering our strategy. This new approach to setting our strategy – and indeed fees – meant we could include those costs in the consultation, alongside the levels of ARF we expect to be able to set as a result.

Following the analysis, we will report on the consultation outcome in the autumn, at which time we will also be able to announce ARF levels, ahead of the dentist annual renewal period which begins in November. We then plan to publish our finalised strategy towards the end of this year.

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

“We are proud of the progress made towards delivering what we set out to achieve through Shifting the balance, but we know we still have some distance to cover to reach our overarching objective of achieving a better, fairer system of dental regulation. This strategy is about fulfilling that objective, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who took the time to tell us their view on our plans - those views will help us to shape our direction and decision-making for the next three years. We look forward to sharing the finalised strategy later this year.”

Our Corporate Strategy 2020-2022: Working with the dental team for public safety and confidence is available to read on  our closed consultations page.