Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Department's response to Question 13 to the consultation on Changes to the General Dental Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council's international registration legislation, for what reason his Department is pursuing with the proposal that international applicants to the dental care professionals register must hold a DCP in the context of 70 per cent of respondents disagreeing with that proposal.

The Order amends the General Dentist Council’s (GDC) legislation so that international dentist qualifications cannot on their own be used in support of an application to the Dental Care Professional (DCP) register. Whilst we recognise that the majority of respondents to the public consultation disagreed with this proposal, we are proceeding with this change in the interests of patient safety. The Government and GDC recognise dentists and DCPs as distinct professions. The GDC’s priority must be on ensuring only suitably qualified people join the professions and this legislative change ensures consistency between the United Kingdom and international routes, since qualified dentists cannot apply to join the DCP register using their dentistry qualification.

The amendment made to the order following consultation enables the GDC to process applications from dentists to join the register as DCPs that are received up until the day before the order comes into force. This ensures that any live DCP title applications submitted before the legislation is passed will be processed.

The GDC will be introducing improvements to the Overseas Registration Exam which will support increased examinations capacity and help those dentists who may previously have utilised the DCP register route to complete the GDC registration process more quickly.