The words to use
- Fitness to practise
- The GDC's process for deciding whether a dental professional is safe to practise now, and what action protects the public and confidence in the profession.
- Erasure
- Removal from the GDC register, the most serious sanction. The GDC erased 18 dental professionals in 2025, about 0.01% of the register.
- Insight
- Showing you understand what went wrong, why it mattered and what you've changed. Panels weigh it heavily and link it to how candid you were.
- Contemporaneous record
- A note made at the time of treatment. GDC Standard 4.1 requires contemporaneous, complete and accurate records; anything added later should be dated as a late entry.
- Indemnity
- Cover that lets harmed patients claim compensation. GDC Standard 1.8 requires dental professionals to have appropriate arrangements in place.
