If you pay annually by card, make sure that you have made the payment, and ensure that the money has left your account.
If you pay by annual or quarterly direct debit, these payments were taken in early December; ensure that the money has left your account.
If you receive payment reminders from the GDC between now and the end of the year, via email, SMS or letter, do not ignore them. They are not general information emails but are personalised to you and mean your ARF has not been received.
We also advise that you check your email spam folder to ensure that any payment reminders have not been missed.
Each year, a small number of registrants become deregistered due to non-payment of the ARF by the deadline. It is not possible to pay the dentists’ registration fee after 23.59pm on 31 December 2023; the payment system will be closed. The affected individuals will be deregistered and will have to stop working from 1 January 2024 and go through a restoration process, which will involve putting a full application pack together and having this assessed by the GDC.
It is a highly involved administrative process and, while the official GDC processing time for this is around 15 working days, it often takes longer, especially if the application is not complete or there are other administrative issues. Leaving the register, even involuntarily, also means your name is taken off the relevant NHS lists and that your indemnity arrangements cease.
We have highlighted the devastating professional, financial and mental health effects of this situation on those affected to the GDC multiple times, as well as the significant loss of patient care, but so far there have not been any changes to their processes apart from an easier way to declare CPD compliance in certain circumstances. We therefore urge you to ensure that your ARF payment has gone through and that you are making the required CPD and indemnity declarations.
Your CPD records must be up to date and comply with the requirement of declaring a minimum number of 10 CPD hours over two consecutive years. This means that if you declared 7 hours last year, you must make a minimum declaration of 3 hours this year. If you are at the end of your cycle, you must still comply with this 10-hour requirement and also ensure that you have declared 100 hours in total.