Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the General Dental Council on steps to help reduce the time taken to approve qualified dentists.

The Department works closely with the General Dental Council (GDC) to support them to reduce the time taken to register suitably qualified dentists. In March 2023, we introduced legislation that gives the GDC greater flexibility to expand the registration routes for international applicants and improve its international registration processes. We welcome the GDC’s recent announcement that it has doubled the size of its registration casework team to improve its registration application processing times for dentists and dental care professionals.