WRITTEN QUESTION E-3048/00

by Glyn Ford (PSE) to the Commission

(28 September 2000)

Subject: Dentistry and Clinical Dental Technicians (CDTs)

In 1991, a UK Government report identified the need for Clinical Dental Technicians (CDTs) within the dental profession and recommended they be acknowledged as a profession.

The General Dental Council (GDC) set up a group to consider this issue and agreed with the government report. Since then, however, the GDC has referred its recommendations back to committee for further work, and they have been debated on several occasions. In a final meeting, the GDC decided that CDTs could NOT undertake the business of dentistry and be paid directly for their services by patients.

The Department of Health has, however, stated that the business of dentistry is not within the GDC remit as it is a public body.

Does this matter fall within the EU's powers and responsibilities?

If so, what plans does the Commission have to ensure the modernisation of the dental profession so that it allows dental patients access to a range of new personnel and professionals who are qualified in the sphere of dentistry, including Clinical Dental Technicians in the UK?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(17 October 2000)

The profession of clinical dental technician has not been harmonised at Community level, which means that the Member States alone are competent to grant practitioner status and to regulate the profession (training requirements, conditions for taking up and pursuing the profession).

The Member States' powers and responsibilities are, however, subject to certain limits imposed by Community harmonisation regarding the dental profession. Council Directive 78/687/EEC of 25 July 1978 concerning the coordination of provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in respect of the activities of dental practitioners(1), which coordinated dental training, lays down the training requirements which the Member States must impose for access to the profession of dental practitioner. That Directive was a prerequisite for the automatic mutual recognition of dental qualifications provided for by Council Directive 78/686/EEC of 25 July 1978 concerning the mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of the formal qualifications of practitioners of dentistry, including measures to facilitate the effective exercise of the right of establishment and freedom to provide services(4), and lays down minimum requirements which ensure that the care provided by the practitioners in question is of a high quality.

It follows from this harmonisation that the Member States are no longer competent to create or continue to allow a profession that is different and separate from that of dentist, but whose field of activity is very similar or identical. Although the Member States are free to establish and regulate professions such as dental technician or dental hygienist as they see fit, they cannot authorise such professionals (who would possess neither the level of training nor the formal qualification required by the dentist Directives) to perform the same activities as dentists. To do so would be contrary to the spirit and structure of the Directives and would deprive them of their effectiveness.

Finally, where practitioner status is granted, Council Directives 89/48/EEC of 21 December 1988 on a general system for the recognition of higher-education diplomas awarded on completion of professional education and training of at least three years' duration(2) and 92/51/EEC of 18 June 1992 on a second general system for the recognition of professional education and training to supplement Directive 89/48/EEC(3) on a general system for the recognition of diplomas apply to mutual recognition by Member States of the qualifications in question.

(1) OJ L 233, 24.8.1978.

(2) OJ L 19, 24.1.1989.

(3) OJ L 209, 24.7.1992.

(4) OJ L 233, 24.8.1978.