The UK government has announced reforms to the professional examination system that overseas-trained dentists must pass in order to practise in the country.
Quick information
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📂 Category: Latest news
🏷️ Tags: dental workforce, dental regulation
The announcement
The UK government has announced plans to significantly expand the capacity of the professional exams required for overseas-trained dentists to practise in the country.
Currently, many dentists who trained outside the UK face delays in joining the General Dental Council (GDC) register because of limited capacity in the required professional examinations.
What will change
Under the reforms:
- Places in the Licence in Dental Surgery (LDS) final examination will increase almost tenfold, from 180 to 1,800 places by 2028.
- The Overseas Registration Exam (ORE) clinical component will expand to around 1,500 places.
These changes are expected to allow more than 1,000 additional overseas-trained dentists to join the UK dental register each year by 2028–2029.
Context
The reforms aim to help address ongoing access problems in UK dentistry and support the expansion of the dental workforce.
The government also announced that 50 additional dental training places will be created annually in England starting in 2027, particularly in areas that currently lack dental schools.
Source
UK Government
🔗 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-dentists-coming-as-government-boosts-number-who-can-practise