General Dental Council (Fitness to Practise etc.) Order 2015

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Colwyn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his explanation of the order, and I look forward to reading in Hansard what exactly it is. It is complicated. I declare my interest as listed on the register.

I am sure all noble Lords will agree with me that the measures included in the order are a welcome and very long overdue step in the right direction toward speeding up the overall process of complaints handled by the GDC. The current legal framework hinders improvements to the effectiveness and efficiency of this process—improvements which, with a major case backlog and cases costing an average of £78,000 to process, the GDC badly needs. However, I will make some brief comments about some conditions that must be met for the implementation of these changes to make a meaningful difference.

First, the case examiners this order introduces must be properly independent from the GDC, as well as appropriately trained and supported in carrying out their new duties. The success of the new system will lie with the calibre and qualifications of the individuals carrying it out. Case examiners might be exposed to significant internal and external pressure when carrying out their functions, and their credibility will ultimately rest on their independence from the GDC. It is also crucial that the clinical case examiner should always be a professional from the same profession as the individual whose case is being examined. That is very important.

However, it is equally important that, for the new system to bring the expected time and cost savings, we need to see a proper culture change in the regulator’s management of fitness-to-practise cases. The BDA has raised with me the hard-line approach of the GDC in its fitness-to-practise investigations. Dentists say that the GDC tends to treat even the most vexatious or minor complaints as potential cases, which leads to heightened and often undeserved stress for the dentists concerned. I share their fear that if this culture prevails, the new case examiners might simply become an additional layer in the fitness-to-practise process, without any meaningful reduction of case loads and costs.

I hope that the GDC will take these points into consideration when implementing the order, so that these changes achieve a decrease in the cost and increase in the speed of decision-making in fitness-to-practise cases—which we all want to see.