The General Dental Council (GDC) has today announced the total number of UK registered dentists following the recent annual renewal period.
The data shows that some 1,003 dentists have been removed from the register since the last renewal period. This is a slight increase from 999 removals in 2023.
Reasons for removal include voluntary removal, non-payment, retirement and notifications of death.
However, the data also shows that the total number of registered dentists has increased, with 44,209 currently on the register. This is a 2.5% increase since the 2023 renewal period and the highest total number of registered dentists in the past five years.
The GDC called this data ‘a useful benchmark’ for the total number of UK registered dentists.
On the data findings, the regulator said: ‘While the register is constantly changing, what we invariably see (for both the dentist and dental care professional registers) is that over the course of the year, the number of registered professionals increases due to new registrations, and then that number drops at the point of renewal as professionals leave the register for a range of reasons.
Important issues
The GDC has also announced its plan to release data on the working life of dentists.
It said: ‘While we recognise there are important issues of concern, including access to NHS dental services and significant ongoing recruitment challenges in some areas, it is important to note that this data does not provide insight into the number of professionals working in different patterns (eg full time versus part time), how many dentists are working in NHS services compared to private practice, local workforce conditions or the numbers of professionals working in different roles (eg academic).
‘However, for the first time, as part of the dentists’ renewal process in 2023, we have gathered data about the work dentists do. [This includes] the number of hours they are working, whether they are working in the NHS or privately, and in clinical or non-clinical roles.
‘We will publish these figures once the analysis is complete.’
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