Kevin Lewis in "Dentistry"

As ever, an excellent article written by Kevin Lewis in the latest issue of Dentistry in which he suggests that "the wheels have fallen off the wagon at the GDC". He then goes on to lament regulation for regulation's sake. It is difficult not to agree.

The GDC is starting to look like a setting for Gormenghast, the brilliant, but possibly over-long trilogy written by Mervyn Peake. In this work characters such as Sepulchrave (worth reading the link to appreciate the extent of the analogy) know what all the rules are but no longer remember, or are able to understand,what they are for. As his irritating sisters state, “he’s very clever but he learns it all from books.” I am not personally against anybody at the GDC. They may well be good people in their own right. But is it not simple deductive logic, that if you do not have sufficient dental experience and awareness at board level, then you cannot produce that which might be expected from experienced and aware dental professionals. In this I am not criticising the existing dental members of the GDC board. Instead I am challenging the progressively reduced role of the dental profession at board level at the GDC, as displayed by the progressively adverse ratio of those with dental clinical experience to those without. In this regard, Kevin Lewis states, "the GDC is rapidly morphing into the Law Society".

If the GDC wishes to retain the confidence of the profession it needs to act not only quickly, but correctly, taking advice from the dental profession. I talk to many dentists in my various roles and I sense that attitudes are changing quickly and an urgent strategy for damage limitation needs to be put in place. Otherwise there is the danger of a "tipping point" being reached. All this is very unfortunate as the dental profession needs a good regulator. The last thing we want to see is it's being swallowed up by the CQC!