No registration – no excuses – no job

“It’s that simple,” said GDC President Hew Mathewson, speaking at the GDC Council meeting this week in Cardiff. He continued:
“If you’re a dental technician wondering about whether to register or not, the message from the GDC is loud and clear - register now or find a new career. If you pass up the chance to register during transition, it will be too late. There’s no opting out. If someone advises you not to register, why not ask them if they’ll pay your fine, or subsidise your lab when the
work stops in August?”

GDC Chief Executive Duncan Rudkin explained: “From August next year, if you’re not registered and you call yourself a dental
technician, we will prosecute you in court. If you call yourself something else but imply that you are a dental technician,
we will prosecute you in court. And if you are a GDC registrant sending lab work to unregistered technicians or employing them as such, you’ll face fitness to practise proceedings and put your own registration at risk.”

The GDC Council has issued this sharp warning to dental technicians as the legal deadline for registration approaches. Continuing to work unregistered after the July 2008 deadline is not a viable option.

Unregistered Laboratory Workers

The GDC Council agreed that it would resume discussion of the situation of laboratory workers who were not dental technicians if proposals for a non-statutory approach to safeguarding standards were made. Members re-affirmed the existing policy, that:

• A dental technician with an old qualification (one not recognised after the end of the transitional period), or eligible for registration only on the basis of experience, who did not register with the Council under the transitional provisions would permanently lose the opportunity to register as a dental technician, unless they were able and willing to qualify from scratch
• An unregistered dental technician would be committing a criminal offence if, after the end of the transitional period, he or she
  • used the title dental technician or dental technologist
    
    or
  • used any title or description which misleadingly implied that he or she was a registered dental care professional
• However they described themselves, unregistered individuals would effectively not be able to work as dental technicians, so working under some alternative idiosyncratic title would not provide a loophole
• As a lay person, an unregistered dental technician would continue to be liable to criminal prosecution if they illegally practised dentistry or engaged in the business of dentistry
• Guidance to dentists and registered dental care professionals would ensure that laboratory work could not be commissioned from or provided by unregistered individuals, who would be effectively disabled from offering dental laboratory services

Don’t lose your registration – pay by Direct Debit

Paying your GDC annual retention fee (ARF) by Direct Debit will save you time, as well as the worry of forgetting to pay the fee and being removed from the Register.

Each year a small number of registrants are removed from the GDC’s registers for non-payment of the ARF. Unregistered and, as a result, unable to practise dentistry in the UK, they must then apply for restoration which includes completing a medical examination and paying an additional fee. To stop this worrying trend, the GDC is encouraging dental professionals to sign up to pay their fee for 2008 and beyond by Direct Debit.

Direct Debit is the easiest and most convenient way for registrants to pay. Once you’ve set it up, there are no more cheques to write and no more worry about meeting payment deadlines.

This method of payment also helps the GDC keep the ARF as low as possible. The GDC pays significantly less for a Direct Debit payment to be processed than for other types of payment. If all registrants paid this way, it would make big savings on administration costs which it would take into account when it reviews the ARF annually.

For more information visit the GDC website at www.gdc-uk.org (go into the ‘current registrant’ section), get in touch with the GDC by emailing ICT@gdc-uk.org, or call: 020 7009 2720.

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