Following a rigorous recruitment process the General Dental Council (GDC) has confirmed that 33 new Fitness to Practise panel members joined the regulator on 27 August 2013.
Fitness to Practise panel members play a vital role in the GDC’s work to protect patients and raise standards in dentistry. The GDC has the power to take action by either removing or restricting a dental professional’s registration if they fall short of the high standards expected.
Panel members sit in public hearings and consider cases where a registrant’s fitness to practise may be impaired due to their health, conduct or performance.
Nine dentists, 12 lay members and 11 dental care professionals were recruited and will now be phased into hearings through to the end of this year. They will sit on the Interim Orders, Professional Conduct, Health, Performance and Registration Appeals Committees.
No more than two new panellists will be used on a five-person panel during their induction period.
The appointments come as the first tranche of independently appointed panellists ended their 10 years of valued service on 31 July 2013.
The names of the new panellists can be found below; full biographies will be available on the GDC website shortly.
The new panellists are:
FtP dentists 2013 (9)
• Penny Allott
• Helen Baker
• Paul Cole
• Margaret Elsey
• Roger Green
• Emily Knapp
• Adrian Moore
• Peter Ommer
• Nisha Sanghrajka
FtP lay 2013 (12)
• Peter Brown
• Philip Brown
• Edmund Burge
• Jonathan Cooper
• Edythe Murie
• Bill Nelson
• Lynn O’Malley
• Adair Richards
• Alice Robertson Rickard
• Steve Shaw
• Andrew Skelton
• Margaret Wolff
FtP DCPs 2013 (11)
• Celeste Barker
• Anita Carter
• Kathryn Dobson
• Helen Griffiths
• Clare Howe
• Jane McAlindin
• Timea Milovecz
• Abigail Price
• Sarah Rauf
• Priya Sharma
• Corinne Shippey