Dentists are working in McDonald’s and Subway to make ends meet due to the overseas registration exam (ORE) ‘bottleneck’.
This is according to a new report by the Association of Dental Groups (ADG), called Creating Dental Oases, which has been presented to MPs in the House of Commons today (18 June).
The research suggests that 4.5 million patients are going untreated annually due to the 2,749 shortfall in the dental workforce – whilst fully-trained dentists from overseas are working in fast food restaurants due to ORE access troubles.
One dentist from overseas is on her fifth try of securing an ORE place, the process of which she describes as a ‘lottery’.
‘I am a fully-trained dentist with 10 years’ experience…I have been making sandwiches at a Subway fast food outlet in Birmingham for over nine months’
Shoaib Saiyed, dentist
Ahmed, a trained dentist from Egypt currently working in McDonald’s and as a part-time dental nurse, said: ‘Despite holding a postgraduate masters’ degree in dental implantology and being a fully qualified Egyptian dentist, I am currently working in the UK at McDonald’s.
‘I am frustrated by the ORE system and have been trying since 2022 to complete the GDC registration to practice here in the UK.’
Shoaib Saiyed, a trained dentist from India employed at Subway fast food restaurant said: ‘I am a fully-trained dentist with 10 years’ experience – but right now my job title is “sandwich artist”.
‘I have been making sandwiches at a Subway fast food outlet in Birmingham for over nine months. I’m very frustrated that I can’t get a place on the ORE. I don’t understand why the GDC doesn’t create provisional registration, so that we can be tried and tested. I just want to prove myself!’
ORE barriers
The white paper examines the key issues behind the dental crisis and how improving workforce numbers is the solution. The report says: ‘The priority intervention needs to be reform by the GDC to allow trained dentists from overseas to practice.’
The suggested solutions include:
- Commit to supporting recruitment: unlock the barriers preventing the 6,000 fully-trained overseas dentists in the registration queue to practice as dentists in the UK, as a matter of urgency. Many of these dentists are here working in unskilled roles. GDC must reform the overseas registration examination (ORE), since currently each ORE sitting only has capacity for 600 students
- Integrated care boards (ICBs) to use their full commissioning powers: fully utilise the current dental workforce team available, and spend all of their dental budget on dentistry
- Improve workforce planning: recognise the skills mix across the full dental team and how best it can be deployed within the ‘mixed economy’, as well as supporting dental school improvements.
Neil Carmichael, executive chair at the ADG, said: ‘We need to unlock the barriers preventing the 6,000 fully-trained overseas dentists in the registration queue to practice as dentists in the UK, as a matter of urgency.
‘Many of these dentists are here working in unskilled roles. The GDC must reform the overseas registration examination, since currently each exam sitting only has capacity for 600 students. At that rate, it will take years to get them qualified.’
He added: ‘The ADG has been speaking to fully-trained dentists, such as Ahmed who has come to the UK from Egypt. He is having to work in McDonald’s cleaning the lavatories because he can’t get through the ORE. This is crazy and should be our number one priority.’
‘Denying patients’
Eni Shehu Muco is a trained dentist from Albania employed as a dental hygienist. She said that the career of dentists from overseas should not be ‘down to luck’.
‘I’ve tried unsuccessfully four times to register for the ORE,’ she said. ‘I am about to try for the fifth time, but I don’t hold out much hope. It feels like a lottery because it is such a frantic scramble to get one of the few places as they become available.
‘I’ve even been told that I might have been unlucky due to the speed of my internet connection! Why should my career be down to luck? And why should patients in need be denied access to a fully trained dentist?’
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