Quality Management

The Scotland Deanery Dental Directorate is responsible for ensuring the quality management of postgraduate Dental education and training to the standards set by the General Dental Council (GDC). 

The Dental Directorate also work in partnership with the three Scottish Dental Schools, Aberdeen, Dundee, and Glasgow, to support final year undergraduate students undertaking placements and experiential learning at Dental Outreach centres across Scotland.

The General Dental Council: Sets standards for ensuring that dentists are trained to an appropriately high level. It is the Regulator for undergraduate and postgraduate dental education in the UK.

The Scottish Government: Facilitates and supports the delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate dental education in Scotland. Public Services Delivery Scotland (PSD Scotland) is directly accountable to the Scottish Government as are all NHS Scotland Health Boards.

Health Boards in Scotland: There are 14 territorial Health Boards in Scotland, the majority of whom support postgraduate dental trainees. They deliver the training in the Public Dental Service (PDS) and Hospital Dental Service (HDS). Dentists in training enter a programme and rotate through a number of local education providers to make sure they get a wide range of experience. They have to cover a curriculum that is approved by the GDC before completing their training.

The Dental Directorate of PSD Scotland quality manage the training delivered by the Health Boards on behalf of the GDC to make sure it is delivered to the correct standards and covers the curriculum for both core and specialty. This is done by receiving regular reports and feedback from the trainees, training programme directors, core training advisors and the Health Boards themselves. We also conduct quality management reviews to ensure that the Health Boards are providing the time and resources to the trainees to get the best training.

This page was last updated on: 06.10.2026 at 10.41