GDC Quality Assurance of Specialty Training
Background
In 2015, the General Dental Council (GDC) adopted the Standards for Specialty Education, for use in quality assuring specialty education in the UK. The Standards set quality requirements for all UK education and training programmes leading to inclusion on one of the GDC's specialist lists.
The current edition of the Standards for Specialty Education was published in 2019.
The General Dental Council Quality Assurance role
Since 2019 the GDC has been quality assuring specialty training against the Standards for Specialty Education.
The Standards for Specialty Education include the following three Standards for programme providers
Standard P1 – Protecting patients
Standard P2 – Quality evaluation and review of the programme
Standard P3 – Specialty trainee assessment
Each Standard has a varying number of Requirements and across the three Standards there is a total of 20 Requirements.
The Scotland Deanery was the first deanery in the UK to be involved in the Quality Assurance Review of Dental Specialty training undertaken by the GDC.
This Review started in 2019 but was significantly delayed due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and its disruption to normal services and day-to-day life across the country.
The Review Team published its initial Report in March 2021 at which point GDC granted agreement to 16 of the 20 Requirements being assessed as being ‘Met’.
Subsequent work and evidence submissions from the Deanery resulted in the remaining 4 Requirements being granted ‘Met’ status in February 2022.
The Scotland Deanery was the first Deanery in the UK to have been granted ‘Met’ status for all the Requirements being assessed.
The GDC Outcomes are formally published on their website and the details for the Scotland Deanery can be accessed via the links below
Initial Report
Follow on Assessment
GDC webpage for Quality Assurance of Specialty Education and Training
https://www.gdc-uk.org/education-cpd/quality-assurance/dental-specialty-training
2026-2027 Update
PSD Scotland received notification of the GDC's 2026/2027 Specialty Monitoring process in July 2026. The outcome of this process will be provided in April 2027.
This page was last updated on: 06.10.2026 at 14.01