General Dental Council: Initial inquires processes adopted to speed up investigations

Initial inquires processes adopted to speed up investigations

Yesterday we announced a permanent change to our processes to improve timeliness in our fitness to practise investigations following our initial inquiries pilot.

The changed approach was applied where clinical practice concerns were received from a single patient and there had not been any allegations raised relating to the dental professionals’ fitness to practise within the previous 12 months. We limited the information requested at the initial stages of an investigation to relevant clinical records only.

The pilot has demonstrated that the approach can significantly reduce the average time it takes to conclude an investigation. The average time taken to assess cases included in the pilot was 13 weeks, more than half of the 30-week key performance indicator for single clinical incident cases to reach the end of the assessment stage.  

The revised approach has been used in around 250 cases during the pilot. Around 170 have been assessed with remaining cases in process. Of the completed cases, 84% were closed with no further action. Allegations were raised in only 16% of cases and referred to case examiners for consideration. 

The pilot started by including only dental professionals with no had not had any concerns raised relating to their fitness to practise in the past. We extended and widened the scope of the pilot from May 2024 to provide more data and include dental professionals who had not had any previous investigation proceed beyond the assessment stage in the past 12 months.

The success of the pilot has depended on the cooperation of dental professionals when asked to send in relevant records. We are grateful for the way in which dental professionals and their representatives have engaged and responded to these requests.

Investigations into fitness to practise concerns are an important part of the regulatory system that helps to ensure public safety and confidence is maintained, but reducing the negative impacts on dental professionals is also a priority for us.

We have adopted the change as part of our normal processes and are now piloting a similar approach for clinical cases that include minor conduct concerns.

Find out more about how we investigate public protection concerns.