The General Dental Council (GDC) has adopted an initial enquiries process to speed up fitness to practise (FtP) investigations.
The new process limits the amount of information requested by the GDC at the initial stages of an investigation. Only relevant clinical records will now be gathered, reducing the amount of time taken to review the documentation.
This change will only apply to single-patient cases involving a dental professional with no other FtP concerns raised in the previous 12 months. The regulator said this was to ‘ensure investigations were proportionate to the potential risks’ because these cases have a high likelihood of being closed at the initial assessment stage.
‘Promising results’
The GDC announced a pilot scheme to test this approach in September 2023. It has now announced that the pilot ‘demonstrated that the approach can significantly reduce the average time it takes to conclude an investigation’.
According to the GDC’s findings, cases took an average of 13 weeks to conclude during the pilot, compared to 30 weeks for single-incident cases outside of the scheme.
Of around 250 cases investigated during the pilot, 84% were concluded at the assessment stage with no further action.
Theresa Thorp is executive director of regulation at the GDC. She said: ‘While investigations into fitness to practise concerns are an important part of the regulatory system that maintains public safety and confidence, reducing the negative impacts of investigations is a priority for us.
‘The pilot has shown the potential to streamline investigations for certain types of concerns while upholding the GDC’s commitment to public protection.’
GDC working to reduce ‘negative health and wellbeing impacts’
She also stressed the GDC’s hope to reduce the impact of FtP processes on dental professionals’ wellbeing. She said: ‘By taking a different approach with certain types of cases, we are working to reduce the negative health and wellbeing impacts of our investigations for all participants in regulatory proceedings.
‘Ongoing research is helping us understand the difference these changes make, and we are committed to further improvements based on the insights gathered.’
Theresa Thorp added that ‘the success of the pilot has depended on the cooperation of dental professionals in promptly providing their relevant records’. She said the GDC was ‘grateful for the positive response from them and their representatives’.
John Makin, head of the Dental Defence Union (DDU), welcomed the positive outcome of the pilot. He said: ‘The enormous strain placed on the health and wellbeing of dental professionals and their families undergoing investigations is well documented. So we welcome the introduction of the initial inquiries process after the successful completion of the pilot. Anything that reduces the time taken to carry out and conclude an investigation is a welcome development and will help to reduce delays and improve the proportionality of investigations.
‘We are also pleased to see that the GDC plans to pilot the same approach to cases that include minor conduct concerns. These improvements in the process are welcome, but do not alter our long-held view about unnecessary delays in the fitness to practise process.’
Deaths while under fitness to practice investigation
On 4 November, the GDC released figures on the cause of death of dental professionals who have died under FtP investigation. In the period between 2019 and 2022 covered by the report, 20 dental professionals died under these circumstances. Their causes of death were categorised as natural, external, or unspecified, with one subcategory of suicide.
The GDC says it replaced exact numbers within number ranges to reduce the risk of individuals being identified through calculations of the reported data.
The figures are:
- Natural – seven to 10
- Deaths from external causes – seven to 10, of which one to three were confirmed as suicide
- Other/unspecified – one to three.
Deaths were included in the subcategory of suicide when ‘suicide’ was listed on the death certificate or notification. Death certificates in Scotland and Northern Ireland do not use the word ‘suicide’ or any synonym of it.
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