Previous corporate strategies and costed corporate plans

We are now working to deliver our Corporate Strategy 2023-2025.

As well as our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy 2021-2023.

You will find our previous strategic and the related costed corporate plans below.

2020-2022: Right time, Right place, Right touch

Our strategy Right time, Right place, Right touch 2020-2022 set out our ambition to further develop our approach to upstream regulation and ensure complaints were being resolved by the right organisations. It also articulated our commitment to right touch decision making. Our strategic aims were reviewed in 2021, as part of our response to the pandemic.

We reviewed our strategic plans and priorities during 2020, to ensure our priorities remained the same as the context and environment changed due to the pandemic. While the context in which we were operating changed, our role in public protection did not. As a result, we clarified our strategic aims without changing their intent, and shifted our emphasis as we prioritised our efforts.

Our revised strategic aims for the period 2021-2022 were:

Career long upstream regulation that upholds standards for safe dental professional practice and conduct.
Resolution of patient concerns at the right time, in the right place.
Right touch regulatory decision making for our enforcement action.
Maintaining and developing our model of regulation in preparation for reform of our legislation.
An outcome focused, high performing, and sustainable organisation.

Find out more about our response to the changing strategic context.

Costed corporate plans associated with the strategic planning period were:

2017-2020: Shifting the balance

Shifting the balance: a better, fairer system of dental regulation was a set of development proposals set out in 2017, to supplement our corporate strategy. It set out our ambition for a system of dental regulation that was collaborative, and delivered the right outcomes for the public and patients at the right cost, within an acceptable timeframe, and in a proportionate manner.

Shifting the balance provided a focus for our work around four key proposals:

Moving upstream: putting a stronger emphasis on patient protection, learning within the system, engaging more effectively with current and future dental professionals, and developing alternative approaches to CPD.
First tier complaints: building better partnerships to improve the handling of patient feedback, concerns and complaints raised with the practice, and expanding access to mediation.
Working with partners: other regulators, stakeholders and the professions.
Refocusing fitness to practise: clarifying the serious nature of impaired fitness to practise and taking action to ensure that anything short of that is dealt with using alternative tools with the right touch, and providing support to patients to find the best mechanism for resolving their issue.

Over the period we detailed our approach to upstream regulation (now referred to as preventative regulation), and reported on our ambition to focus more of our regulatory effort on prevention. You will find these details in our Moving Upstream Report 2019 and its related Data Supplement, and its follow up, the Moving Upstream Report 2020.

We also engaged with our key stakeholders at our Moving Upstream Conference 2020.

2016-2019: Patients, Professionals, Partners, Performance

Our strategy for the period 2016-2019 was Patients, Professionals, Partners and Performance. It set out our strategic goals in four key areas:

Patients: we will put patient and public protection at the heart of what we do. We will empower patients to make informed choices about the care they receive.
Professionals: we will work closely with the dental profession to identify priority areas for action and use collaborative approaches in tackling them.
Partners: we will work with our partners in the dental sector to protect patients and make the system of dental regulation in the UK more effective.
Performance: we will continue to strive to become a high performing, proportionate regulator which has the confidence of patients, the public and dental professionals.

The business plans associated with the strategic planning period were: