The 7 Things the GDC Says Your Dental Website Must Show

The short answer: your practice website is not just marketing, it is a regulated document. The General Dental Council's Guidance on advertising, in force since 30 September 2013, lists exactly what a dental practice website must display. There are seven items, they are specific, and plenty of the otherwise excellent practice websites we scan are missing at least one of them. We build websites for dentists, so this checklist is baked into every dental build we ship. Here is the full list, and what each item means in practice.

Key takeaways

• The GDC lists seven things a practice website must display, including each professional's GDC registration number and qualification with its country of origin.
• The less obvious ones: a link to the GDC, your complaints procedure with an escalation contact, and the date the website was last updated.
• Everything on the site must be accurate and backed by facts, with no claims that create an unjustified expectation about results.
• Comparing the skills or qualifications of dental professionals on your website is not allowed.

The seven requirements

Straight from the guidance, a dental practice website must display:

1. The practice name and the geographic address where the dental service is provided. A contact form alone does not cover this.
2. Contact details, including an email address and telephone number.
3. Each professional's qualification and the country it came from. "BDS, University of Manchester (UK)" covers what the guidance asks for.
4. Each professional's GDC registration number. Usually on the team page, next to the name it belongs to.
5. The GDC's own contact details, or a link to the GDC website. A footer link to gdc-uk.org is the simplest compliant answer.
6. Your complaints procedure, and who patients can contact if they are not satisfied with the response. This means a real page, with the escalation route spelled out.
7. The date the website was last updated. The one we see missed most often, and the easiest to fix.

The rules behind the list

The same guidance sets the tone for everything else on the site. Information must be accurate and not misleading. Claims should be backed up with facts. Statements that are likely to create an unjustified expectation about results are out, which is why "pain-free dentistry, guaranteed" is a sentence we will never write on a client's site.

One rule catches people by surprise: the guidance says websites must not display information comparing the skills or qualifications of dental professionals. Your site can set out your own skills and qualifications in full; the guidance draws the line at measuring them against another professional's.

The items practices usually miss

In our experience the first four items are usually in place, because they are the natural content of a team page. The gaps we see are the last three: no GDC link anywhere on the site, a complaints page that exists on paper but never made it online, and no last-updated date at all.

None of these is hard to add. A footer handles the GDC link and the date. The complaints procedure is one page, written once. The reason they go missing is that most website builders have never read the guidance, so nobody put them in the template.

What this means for how your site is built

A compliant dental site has a predictable shape, and it is the shape we build to: team page with qualifications and registration numbers beside each name, a complaints page linked from the footer, the GDC link and last-updated date in the footer itself. Compliance is part of the build from day one.

Our prices for that are public, on our price list: £649 for a five-page site, £89 per extra treatment page, or a website rescue at £449 if your current site is good but needs the missing items and pages brought in line. The last-updated requirement is also the practical case for a care plan: £39 a month keeps the site maintained, so the date in the footer stays honest.

The usual caveat, stated plainly: we are website builders, not regulators or lawyers. The list above is from the GDC's published guidance, and the guidance itself is short and worth ten minutes of your time.

How to check your current site

Run your site through our free scanner at buildmydigital.co.uk/scan. It runs the 30 checks we run before any build ships, covering the trust, content and technical basics where these gaps show up. The report is instant and no email is required. Then open your own footer and team page against the seven items above and count what is missing.

Common questions

Does my GDC number really have to be on the website?

Yes. The guidance requires each professional's registration number to be displayed, along with their qualification and the country it came from. The team page is the natural home for both.

Does every dentist at the practice need listing?

The dental professionals providing the service should each appear with their qualification and registration number. A team page that lists them once, accurately, satisfies this and is better marketing than a generic stock photo anyway.

What counts as a complaints procedure page?

A page that explains how to complain to the practice, and who the patient can contact if they are not happy with your response. Publish it as a normal page a patient can reach from the footer, since a PDF buried three clicks deep helps nobody.

What does fixing the gaps cost?

Real numbers, as always: a website rescue rebuilding up to three pages on your existing domain is £449, extra pages are £89 each, and a full five-page build is £649. Half up front, half at launch, and the site and domain stay yours.