The Government is set to introduce legislation which will allow the GDC to take forward its second phase of reforms, from January 2005.

The legislation will give the GDC new powers to extend statutory GDC registration to cover the whole dental team, including dental nurses and dental technicians, set up a complaints scheme for non-NHS dental patients, reform its procedures for dealing with misconduct and ill health amongst dental professionals, plus introduce new procedures to tackle problems of poor performance in dentists and remove the current restriction on the number of dental bodies corporate.

These initiatives make up the second phase of the GDC's continuing reform programme, which is being implemented through a series of amendments – Section 60 orders – to the Dentists Act. The first wave of GDC reforms allowed the Council to become smaller, with greater lay membership and to introduce compulsory continuing professional development for all dentists.