The General Dental Council took two people to court because they had practised without being resgistered. (Photo: Andrey Burmakin/Shutterstock)

WORTHING/SOUTHAMPTON, UK: By law, all dentists, dental nurses, dental technicians, clinical dental technicians, dental hygienists, dental therapists and orthodontic therapists must be registered with the General Dental Council (GDC) to work in the UK. This is to ensure only appropriately qualified and skilled dental professionals are part of the dental team looking after patients. The UK regulator of dental practice, the GDC, has recently prosecuted two non-registrants for the illegal practice of dentistry.

On 13 November, a man pleaded guilty at Worthing Magistrates’ Court of unlawfully holding himself out as being prepared to practise dentistry. The offence related to an incident on 23 January 2013 in Bognor Regis, where he was working as a dental technician. 

When considering sentencing, the magistrates took into account the fact that the man had been practising for five years without being registered even though he knew that he needed to be registered, as he had contacted the GDC previously. The man received a fine of £300 (€360) and was ordered to pay a Victim Surcharge of £30 (€36) and full costs to the GDC of £1,045.21 (€1,257). 

In a separate case, a woman pleaded guilty to the unlawful practice of dentistry at the West Hampshire Magistrates’ Court in Southampton. She was arrested by the Hampshire police in October and charged with three offences of committing fraud by dishonestly making a false representation contrary to the Fraud Act 2006 and one offence of unlawfully practising dentistry contrary to the Dentists Act 1984 over a six-year period. 

The woman was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for the Fraud Act offences and was ordered to pay a Victim Surcharge of £60 (€72) and Crown Prosecution Service costs of £85 (€102). She received no separate penalty for the Dentists Act offence.

The woman, a formerly registered dental hygienist, was removed from the GDC register in January 2007 for non-payment of her annual retention fee. Since that time, she has been working part time in two dental practices in Southampton and provided counterfeit annual GDC certificates to her employers for the last six years with counterfeit dental indemnity insurance certificates for the same period. During the time she was working illegally, the woman treated approximately 8,000 patients.