DTUK1110

S o the General Dental Council is dipping into its reserves to the tune of £5m to get through the backlog of Fitness to Practise cases sitting in its case files. This is not the only reason for the funding; Revalidation, Overseas Registration Exam regulation, Customer Advice and Informa- tion Team capacity... many of the facets of the GDC’s regulatory role need additional funding to cope with the rise in demand of the GDC’s services. It is good also that the GDC has decided to share this fairly critical set of documents with the public and practitioners – it gives an air of transparency to an area of the Council’s opera- tions that can be given to rumour and conjecture. Of course the document does not give happy reading that one of the ways in which the GDC will have to fund in the future is to raise the An- nual Retention Fee (ARF) by up to £100 for dentists (DCPs are not specified in the document). In these cash-squeezed times, anything extra that has to be paid out will be unpopular; the flip side is of course that dentists have had the ARF frozen for the last couple of years. Interesting times indeed for 37 Wimpole St. As you read this I will be (volcanic ash permitting) acclimatising to the Tanzanian weather and beginning my trip to the village of Bukumbi to ren- ovate a community centre and provide support for the charity Bridge2Aid with colleagues from Schulke UK and Henry Schein Minerva. It is a strange feeling having to mentally (and packing- ly) prepare for a trip that would be the experience of a lifetime, whilst having to hear about the doom and gloom of yet more de- lays in the reopening of the air- space. I have friends ‘stuck’ (be- ing trapped in New York doesn’t sound much like stuck to me!) all over the world and I have been hearing stories of dental prac- titioners forced into expensive trips via hired cars and Euros- tar (and don’t forget the poor unfortunates who are stranded in Singapore after IDEM last week!). In fact the only winners seem to be the temp agencies that are doing a roaring trade in providing cover! Anyway, back to Bukumbi. There is still time to support me and the team - go to www.just- giving.com/bukumbi- bound. And keep a look out for my reports from Tanzania after I get back! See, ever the optimist... DT Do you have an opinion or some- thing to say on any Dental Tribune UK article? Or would you like to write your own opinion for our guest comment page? If so don’t hesitate to write to: The Editor, Dental Tribune UK Ltd, 4th Floor, Treasure House, 19-21 Hatton Garden, London, EC1 8BA Or email: lisa@dentaltribuneuk.com Editorial comment Going up in smoke Erratum ‘ ‘ The Royal College of Physicians, Regent’s Park, London World Class Speakers: Julian Webber, Kevin Lewis, Achim Schmidt, Eddie Lynch, Basil Mizrahi, Wyman Chan, Trevor Bigg, Jonothan Britto, Joe Omar, Seema Sharma, Bruce Bernstein ...many more to come. Go to www.clinicalinnovations.co.uk or call 020 7400 8967 The Clinical Innovations Conference 2010 | The state of the Nation Friday 7th and Saturday 8th May C M Y CM MY CY CMY K A4 lightbulb CIC advert-amended-text.pdf 1 12/04/2010 17:18:19 Dental Tribune has received comment from Ingenious Media regarding the re- cently published column “A sensible alter- native”, by Michael Lansdell (DT; Volume 4, Issue 6 pg 24-25). Ingenious was the company featured in the Mail on Sunday article of 14 Febru- ary to which Mr. Lansdell refers. There are two major errors in his piece to which they object: 1. Mr Lansdell refers to “the Inland Revenue’s position … [that] the arrange- ment was principally aimed at tax avoid- ance”. This is untrue. It is the job of the HMRC to distinguish between bona fide trading businesses and schemes aimed at simply exploiting tax benefits. As a matter of routine, all of our businesses are subject to rigorous scrutiny and have been found to have been operated in the proper manner. In particular, we have consistently demon- strated that investors have claimed correct- ly for any losses that they have incurred. Given our track record, we are completely confident that HMRC will agree that we look to make successful films and that our film businesses are carried out on a com- mercial basis with a view to profit. 2. Mr Lansdell goes on to state that “the firm that developed the scheme had problems of its own …”. Again, Mr Lansdell has got this wrong, confusing In- genious with another company mentioned in the piece (Vantis). Apologies for any confusion caused. DT 3NewsApril 26-May 2, 2010United Kingdom Edition