In order to work legally and safely in the UK all dental professionals must be registered with us.

Offering or providing dental treatments when you are not registered with the GDC is illegal practice. The GDC will investigate all allegations of illegal practice and potentially prosecute them in the criminal courts.
 
If you offer or provide dental treatments or advice without being registered with us, you may be committing a criminal offence. Information about who is legally and safely able to offer treatments is available. 
 
We want to make sure that all dental treatments are provided legally and safely, so please let us know if you have been offered or had dental treatment by:

• ​someone who was on one of our registers but has been erased
  

• someone who is currently suspended from our registers, or

• someone who has never been on our registers.

To easily find out if an individual is registered with us you can search our registers.
 
The primary purpose of the GDC is patient protection. There is more information about how we or others can help you with illegal practice.
 
If you are interested in more detail around the law and policy in this area, you can find our Prosecution Policy (541.6 KB, PDF) and lots of the facts and myths about Illegal Practice.