Supporting dental registrants in difficulty.

Over the past few years there has been a significant increase in the number of dentists and dental care professionals (registrants) having conditions placed on their practice either by the General Dental Council or NHS area teams. There are a number of reasons for this including the fact that patients complain more often, colleagues are now expected to alert the authorities if poor practice is detected and the demographics of the dental profession in the UK are changing. Steps have already been taken to prevent dentists getting into difficulty, such as the development of requirements for continued professional development by the GDC and past initiatives at a local level set up to assist dentist in difficulty. The regional offices of Health Education England and equivalent organisations in Wales and Scotland assist registrants in difficulty in meeting these conditions. Little published research has been carried out into this important service which has had to develop rapidly over the past few years. There is a need to investigate the current service, the views of those dental professionals being assisted and those providing the support to inform the further development of the service. This paper provides an introduction to a planned series of research papers reporting on our investigation into the service provided by HEE teams.