Dentists from overseas are being forced to work in McDonald’s due to bureaucracy preventing them from plugging skills shortages in the UK, according to an industry body.
The Association of Dental Groups, which represents major dental providers, will send a report to MPs today (18 June) urging the government to change the rules on hiring qualified dentists from abroad.
The report says the main obstacle to working in the UK is securing a place to take the exams required to get on the General Dental Council register.
The Overseas Registration Examination (ORE) involves two parts, and dentists who qualified overseas need to pass both in order to get on the register and be able to work in the UK.
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However, only 600 people can sit the exam, which is organised just twice a year. According to GDC figures, there are 6,000 overseas dentists waiting to take the exams.
The GDC has put on extra sittings in recent months to deal with the backlog, but many dentists are forced to work in lower-paid, lower-skilled jobs for months or years while they wait.
The ADG estimates that 4.5 million patients are going untreated annually due to a 2,749 shortfall in the dental workforce.
Neil Carmichael, executive chair of the ADG, said: “We need to unlock the barriers preventing the 6,000 fully-trained overseas dentists in the registration queue to practise as dentists in the UK, as a matter of urgency. Many of these dentists are here working in unskilled roles.
“The ADG has been speaking to fully-trained dentists, such as Ahmed who has come to the UK from Egypt. He is having to work in McDonald’s cleaning the lavatories because he can’t get through the ORE! This is crazy and should be our number one priority.”
Shoaib Saiyed, a trained dentist from India, is working at Subway while she waits to sit the exams.
“I am a fully trained dentist with 10 years’ experience – but right now my job title is ‘sandwich artist’. I have been making sandwiches at a Subway fast food outlet in Birmingham for over nine months,” she said.
“I am very frustrated that I can’t get a place on the ORE. I don’t understand why the GDC doesn’t create provisional registration, so that we can be tried and tested. I just want to prove myself.”
The ADG’s report, “Creating Dental Oases”, recommends three actions to address the gaps in the dental workforce.
The top priority for the government is to “unlock the barriers” to overseas registration as a matter of urgency, reforming the exam regime so more students can register here in the UK.
It also wants Integrated Care Boards to use their full commissioning powers to spend their dental budgets and “fully utilise” their available dental workforce.
Finally, it urges the government to improve workforce planning by recognising the different skills across dental teams and how they are deployed in a “mixed economy”.
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