The Secret Dentist has not held back – this month they discuss how damaging the attitude of the GDC and the NHS dental contract are to the dental profession.
The attitude of the GDC towards the dental profession over the last few years really does sum up all that is wrong within the healthcare environment in the UK.
Aloof, detached, negative, uncaring, empire building, law-unto-themselves, smug. Please feel free to add your own adjective.
The GDC themselves should be investigated for allowing NHS general dental services to continue while imposing standards on the profession which they cannot conform to whilst working under the NHS contract.*
‘Bringing the profession into disrepute’
Health Select Committee after Health Select Committee has condemned the UDA (unit of dental activity) contract as not fit for purpose. But it still continues to force more and more recently qualified NHS dentists into a life of modern-day slavery.
Given the rising cost of everything, way over the annual increase in NHS dental fees for the last umpteen years, how can a dentist carry out everything required for one UDA fee which averages £25?
Reporting themselves to themselves might be the only way to actually make them realise how absurd they are. And how absurd the current NHS general dental services contract is.
They are bringing the profession into disrepute by allowing the contract to continue.
Now where was that GDC renewal form that dropped through the post recently?
*The GDC has no role in setting the NHS contract nor does it have the power to allow (or otherwise) ‘NHS dental services to continue’.
Catch up on the Secret Dentist’s previous columns
- A country in chaos
- The Queen’s legacy and an opportunity for reflection
- NHS dental contract changes
- Time to get off the NHS dentistry fence
- A different world.
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