Built for dental practitioners registered with the GDC. Whether you are a dentist, specialist, hygienist, therapist, or prosthetist, our courses address the ethical frameworks and conduct standards the GDC requires. Written by healthcare professionals familiar with dental regulatory proceedings.
The General Dental Council (GDC) and GDC regulate all dental practitioners in the United Kingdom — setting professional standards, managing registration, and overseeing conduct notifications. If you are facing a notification, complaint or investigation, these courses help you evidence insight, reflection and remediation.
Aligned with GDC guidelines. Helping dentists facing an investigation, inquiry or fitness to practise review, and for CPD purposes.
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Covers ethical obligations including duties to report concerns, maintain honesty, and uphold probity in all professional dealings — core GDC requirements.
Covers professional standards and behaviours expected by the GDC — conduct, communication, teamwork, and maintaining public trust.
Comprehensive course on medical ethics principles — ethical frameworks, moral reasoning, and professional decision-making aligned with GDC guidelines.
Explores the professional ethics landscape — ethical obligations, standards of practice, and regulatory expectations set by the GDC.
Covers duty of candour obligations — being open and honest with patients when things go wrong, as required by the GDC.
Understand confidentiality obligations under GDC guidelines — data protection, justified disclosure, and information sharing.
Training on valid informed consent, patient privacy, capacity assessment, and chaperone requirements per GDC guidelines.
Communication skills that prevent complaints — breaking bad news, shared decision-making, and conflict resolution per GDC guidelines.
Create clear, legally defensible records meeting GDC standards — electronic records, amendments, and common errors.
Navigate social media risks — GDC guidance on online conduct, digital confidentiality, and reputation management.
Strengthen multidisciplinary teamwork — communication, handover protocols, hierarchy management, and safe team environments.
Ethical and professional standards for safe prescribing — regulatory guidelines, controlled substances, and protocols.
Maintain and demonstrate clinical competence as required by the GDC — patient safety, risk management, and governance.
What probity means under GDC guidelines — honesty, financial integrity, transparency, and managing conflicts of interest.
Navigate financial ethics — conflicts of interest, industry relationships, billing ethics, gift policies, and full transparency.
Practical guidance on rebuilding professional trust after an incident — restoring confidence with patients, the public, and the GDC.
Essential course for GDC proceedings — complaints, investigation, hearings, demonstrating insight, remediation, and outcomes.
Build professional insight — recognising limitations, understanding impact, and satisfying GDC expectations during proceedings.
Guidance on effective remediation — action plans, evidencing change, and demonstrating concerns are addressed.
Develop meaningful reflective practice — reflective accounts, structured frameworks, and meeting GDC expectations.
Demonstrate that past issues will not be repeated — root cause analysis, practice changes, and sustained improvement.
Guidance on managing complaints professionally — investigation process, response letters, lessons learned, and resilience.
Covers the boundary spectrum, dual relationships, warning signs of drift, sexual boundary violations, and maintaining trust.
Maintaining ethical boundaries in clinical relationships — patient interactions, colleague dynamics, and power imbalances.
Dental practice involves daily decisions about treatment planning, informed consent, patient communication and professional conduct. The way dentists handle these responsibilities shapes patient trust, practice reputation and standing with the General Dental Council.
The General Dental Council handle notifications about the health, conduct and performance of dental practitioners. Concerns raised by patients, colleagues or employers can lead to an assessment, investigation, conditions on registration, or referral to a tribunal. Common triggers include patient complaints about treatment outcomes, informed consent failures, advertising that makes misleading claims, billing disputes, documentation gaps and professional boundary concerns. Understanding these risks and how to respond is central to maintaining your registration and protecting your career.
For dentists who have received a notification from the GDC, ethics and professionalism courses provide structured, documented evidence of reflection and learning. Many dental defence organisations and lawyers advise practitioners to complete relevant professional development early in the process — covering areas such as consent, boundaries, documentation, and reflective practice — to demonstrate insight and a commitment to improvement in their formal response.
Informed consent is one of the most common areas of complaint in dentistry. Patients expect clear explanations of treatment options, risks, costs and alternatives before procedures begin. Ethics training helps dentists strengthen their consent processes, avoid misunderstandings that lead to complaints, and document consent conversations in a way that is defensible if a concern is later raised with the Dental Board.
Maintaining professional boundaries is essential in dental practice, where close physical proximity and ongoing patient relationships create particular ethical responsibilities. Courses on professional boundaries help dentists recognise the early signs of boundary drift, manage dual relationships in small communities, and understand the serious regulatory consequences of boundary violations — including the Dental Board’s sexual misconduct reforms.
Dental advertising complaints are a growing area of regulatory action in the United Kingdom. The GDC expect advertising to be accurate, not misleading, and compliant with the National Law. Ethics and probity courses address honest communication about services and fees, managing conflicts of interest, and maintaining the financial transparency that patients and regulators expect.
Modern dental practice relies on effective teamwork between dentists, dental hygienists, therapists, assistants and administrative staff. Professionalism courses support better communication, role clarity, handover protocols and conflict resolution within dental teams — all of which contribute to safer patient care and fewer workplace complaints.
Whether you are a general dentist, dental specialist, dental hygienist, oral health therapist or dental prosthetist, investing in ethics and professionalism education strengthens your confidence, supports regulatory compliance and enhances the quality of care you provide. By developing professional and ethical skills alongside clinical expertise, dental practitioners can reduce complaint risk, build stronger patient relationships and protect their professional standing.
Ethical standards, honesty, probity and the advertising and fee-transparency rules the GDC enforce under the National Law.
Clear explanation of options, risks and costs, and defensible documentation of consent conversations — one of the most common areas of dental complaint.
Structured modules on fitness to practise, insight, remediation, reflection and ensuring no repeat — the evidence a Board or tribunal looks for during an investigation.
Professional boundaries (including the sexual-misconduct reforms), record-keeping, and communication within dental teams of dentists, hygienists, therapists and assistants.
Courses written by healthcare professionals, aligned with GDC guidelines for dentists in the United Kingdom.
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