Newsletter: November 2017

Welcome to our latest newsletter in a brand new format—we hope the improved design will make it easier to navigate through articles and find points of interest.

We do put a lot of useful and important information in our newsletter so we really encourage you to read them and share them with any colleagues who may not be in the habit of reading them.

Today the new scope of practice for oral health therapy comes into effect. We have 492 registered practitioners who are eligible to register as oral health therapists, and a total of 440 practitioners are automatically registered in the new scope as of today. A number of others have expressed their intention to change their registration to oral health therapy and have been in contact with our registration team to start the process. Congratulations to all our newly-registered oral health therapists—as we have said before, the new scope recognises the unique skills you bring to your profession and we are excited to be part of recognising your practice in this way.

Thank you to all who attended our recertification forums and webinars. In total, over 500 people joined in the discussion either in person at one of our ten forums or online through our webinars. I personally attended most of the sessions and was impressed with the insight and constructive engagement people brought to the process. We have taken a lot of feedback away from the forums that will be considered as part of the consultation process.

Consultation for this phase of the recertification review closed on 30 September. We received around 250 submissions—thank you to all who took the time to send their thoughts and suggestions through. You can read the submissions on our website. We are currently working through the submissions, and the full Council will be reviewing them in due course. 

We have an update on our IT system upgrade in this newsletter—we have made significant progress on this project. Please ensure we have a current email address for you as this will be your initial username that you will use to access the self-service portal.

Our annual report was published and presented to Parliament in September—please have a read of it if you have not already.

We are currently consulting on the draft 2018/19 budget, APC fees and disciplinary levies for all oral health practitioners and other fees. Please read our consultation paper if you have not already.

Kind regards,
Marie