Dental Care Professionals
The Yorkshire Deanery is committed to all members of the dental care team, especially with the run up to the deadline for registration with the GDC.
We currently have two Dental Nurse Tutors, Julia Armstrong (DCP Tutor, West Yorkshire) and Geraldine Birks (DCP Tutor, NEYNL), who are here to support Dental Nurses through registration with the GDC and to answer any queries. We also have a Dental Tutor for Hygiene & Therapy, Denise Creasey, who is available to answer aspects of postgraduate training for this group of DCPs.
Our aim in the future is provide postgraduate education and training for all DCPs in Yorkshire, following the registration with the GDC. If you have any questions or wish to submit any suggestions to any member of our team, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We are currently running a few further courses for Access to Registration and Assessment and you are welcome to contact the Deanery for further information or look under CPD courses.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
The GDC now has a 5 week turnaround for Dental Nurses and Dental Technicians with regards to processing their registration. The GDC currently have 8 members of staff dedicated to this process, dealing with nothing else. Currently, there are 12,499 Dental Nurses on the Dental Register. This has steeply increased lately and the GDC are receiving some 900 applications per week. IT is anticipated that this will now be slowing down, as a number of individuals are applying early to avoid the increase in fees.
There are unfortunately on 1,176 Dental Technicians registered with the GDC and this is a cause for major concern. It must be reported that there is in excess of 1,000 applications that have been received with incomplete documentation and this clearly lengthens the process.
30% of applicants still send in their original documents. The GDC have never asked for original documents and are currently receiving original passports, driving licenses and other certificates. The GDC stress that all is required is an authenticated photocopy of the required documentation and this could be countersigned by the employing dentists.