I am writing in response to Laura Marshall's article So you're a therapist for the dentist? in the October issue of BDJ Team (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41407-020-0438-2).

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I really enjoyed reading this. Well done to the author. We need a huge PR campaign: the GDC should lead so that the public know the roles in dentistry. The GDC don't seem to want to. As the regulator, they should raise awareness of the dental team, their roles and talents. Some great infograms could be really good as a public PR piece.

Amanda Gallie

Stefan Czerniawski, Executive Director, Strategy at the GDC, responds: We fully support all members of the dental team working to their full scope of practice and, of course, dental therapists are an important part of that. Better public understanding of roles within the team could help and, as Ms Marshall points out in her article in BDJ Team, the NHS has promoted the roles of the wider team in other areas of healthcare. Of course, dental professionals themselves also need to understand the roles within the team and, as our recent research on scope of practice revealed,1 awareness of others' roles in the team is low. The GDC is ready to do its part - and the findings of the research are feeding into our work to improve the scope of practice guidance - but this will not be a silver bullet and needs to be part of a wider collaborative approach.