On Wednesday 11 March 2015 the General Dental Council's (GDC) Chair, Bill Moyes, and Chief Executive, Evlynne Gilvarry, appeared before the Health Select Committee (HSC) for the GDC's first ever accountability hearing. Moyes and Gilvarry came under unprecedented scrutiny. The Committee, chaired by Sarah Wollaston, pointed to written evidence from the Professional Standards Authority that described the regulator as worse than seven of the eight professional regulators it oversees. Here we summarise some of the reaction to the Committee hearing.

Local Dental Committees (LDCs):

Leaders of the LDCs called for the GDC Chair to step down following the 'thrashing from Health Select Committee'. This follows a vote in December 2014, when representatives of 90 out of the UK's 96 LDCs voted unanimously for a motion of no confidence in the GDC. Following the hearing, the leaders again called on Moyes and Gilvarry to 'apply the standards they claim to uphold and restore confidence throughout dentistry by vacating their posts at the head of the GDC.'

General Dental Council (GDC)

According to the GDC itself: 'the Chair and Chief Executive both welcomed the opportunity to attend the hearing. The GDC is wholly committed to achieving high standards of regulation and was pleased to engage with the HSC members regarding the range of measures that have been put in place to meet the challenges that face dental regulation.' The HSC shared the GDC's disappointment that legislative change had not occurred during the current Parliament.

British Dental Association (BDA)

Mick Armstrong, Chair of the British Dental Association's Principal Executive Committee, said: 'I want to thank Dr Wollaston and her colleagues for finally shining a light on the GDC. Important questions were posed, but answers were in short supply. They [The GDC] failed to show progress on concrete improvements, and conspicuously failed to take any responsibility for problems of their own making. Tellingly, we saw no evidence of the regulator's regret or willingness to engage positively with our profession. Let me extend my thanks to our members for making this possible. We are committed to seeing this through so, together, we can secure the regulation our profession deserves.'