GDPUK – and especially its forum – has been a bit of an institution in the world of dentistry. It has been going since 2008 (and before then as a newsletter) as a place for dentists to vent, seek advice, or just talk about the state of the profession. Not only was it for dentists, but it was by dentists – set up by Dr Tony Jacobs, who himself is a previous chair of the LDC Conference ( and walking around various conferences with him, it seems he knows half the profession).
I have been a journalist for coming up to 20 years, and since 2018 I have been editor and editor-in-chief of Pulse, the biggest magazine for general medical practitioners in the UK. We have had a lot of success. In my time as editor, our reporting led to the resignation of the NHS England director for primary care, we were the first publication to announce the NHS was ready to administer the Covid vaccine (which knocked the US presidential elections off the front page of many national newspapers), and (my proudest moment) we were denounced as the ‘rabble-rousing GP publication’ in a double page spread in the Mail on Sunday.
We are part of a publishing group called Cogora. Until this year, I used to say it covered the whole of primary case except dentistry. This year, we remedied that by buying GDPUK. We loved what Tony had done with the site and, after 18 years in charge, he was ready to pass it on. So in May this year, we relaunched the site, with Tony continuing as an adviser.
We have purposefully taken the site in a new direction. I personally believe the dentistry profession is underserved within the media, with few friends who will bang the drum – or ‘rabble rouse’ as the Mail on Sunday might put it. Like GMPs, dentists are often portrayed as ‘greedy’, eschewing NHS work because they only care about the money, with little consideration given to successive governments’ roles in the deterioration of the NHS contract. I want to help give them this voice in the media.
But it is not just NHS practices that need a voice. The looming spectre of the General Dental Council affects all dentists. The Competition and Markets Authority review into the private dental sector will have implications for the whole profession. All dentists will be encountering patients who have undergone overseas treatment, and dealing with the fallout of potentially shoddy care. And recruitment problems remain, with not enough trained staff in the UK. In our first few months since relaunch, these are the stories and issues we have covered – with great help from the LDC Confederation – and will continue to cover.
At the same time, we want to continue with the forum, and see it thrive again. However, we have encountered problems with this. Since it was launched in 2008, there has been tons of legislation around data protection and companies have become more savvy around the use of copyright (which makes posting pictures problematic). This has made it hard for us to keep many of the features that users like (which users have certainly let us know!). Alongside this, there are WhatsApp and Facebook groups that provide similar networks. That said, many users remain loyal to the forum, and we still have some of the biggest names in the profession posting regularly.
But our focus is on providing the dentistry news and analysis that supports the profession. As proud as I am for what we have already done, I – and Cogora – are still new to the sector and we are relying heavily on wet-fingered dentists telling us about the issues that are affecting them, and the problems they face when trying to provide patients with the best care they can.
With that in mind, I would encourage you to get in touch with me with whatever thoughts you have about the site or the profession, any news that you think your peers should know about, any bits of advice you have, or anything like that. It is only through hearing from GDPs and readers that we will know how to serve you best. So do email me at jaimiekaffash@cogora.com.
I look forward to hearing from you!
