How the General Dental Council and NHS UDAs crushed the compassion out of dentists

Abstract

Various actions and policies of governmental agencies and the General Dental Council (GDC) have crushed the compassion out of many dental professionals. Compassion is not the same as sympathy or empathy; compassion involves doing something practical to overcome a patient's problems. However, many compassionate dental professionals now think of the GDC as a bit like being trapped in a lift with a wasp. The statistical probability is that nothing really terrible is going to happen to you for trying to solve a patient's problems pragmatically, but the tension and the worry that it might is always present. One effective way to reduce the chances of a painful experience is not to undertake slightly risky procedures. It is far, far safer to make copious notes but then to refer on anything potentially problematic, especially under the flawed NHS Units of Dental Activity system, 'just to be on the safe side', while bowing low to the GDC and claiming it is 'outside of one's competence'. The net result is a lack of clinical engagement in solving patients' problems practically, coupled with an ongoing lack of experience and confidence in solving similar patients' problems, as well as shifting some problems unnecessarily on to overloaded hospital departments. Who benefits from those perverse outcomes?