Legislation for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) in the UK lags behind the patient care we provide: an illustrative timeline and recommendations for the future.

OMFS is the surgical specialty which bridges dentistry and medicine. As the specialty of OMFS emerged from the dental specialty of Oral Surgery during the 1980s the Dentists Act 1984, whose purpose included preventing medical practitioners providing unregulated general dental care, was published. In 2008 the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) review of training in OMFS concluded that dual qualification was essential and recommended that OMFS specialists should only be required to register with one regulator, the General Medical Council. For OMFS to continue to provide high quality patient care, and to help the GDC and GMC in their roles regulating our specialty, BAOMS has identified 5 areas for regulatory change: (1) All OMFS specialists should be able to practice the full curriculum of OMFS with only GMC registration if they wish to - this was recommendation 4 of the PMTEB Review of OMFS in 2008. (2) If an OMFS specialist or trainee is registered with both the GMC and GDC. (3) A Memorandum of Understanding between the GMC and GDC should prevent any fitness to practice concerns being processed by both regulators. (4) Dually registered OMFS specialists should be able to indicate that they have had "appraisal of the full scope of practice" to comply with GDC Continuing Professional Development (CPD) regulations. (5) Oral Surgery specialist list should retain Route 11 for OMFS specialists as the Oral Surgery Curriculum is entirely within the OMFS curriculum. Legislative changes may be the best route to deliver these recommendations. Until these changes happen, the GMC, GDC and BAOMS should work together in the best interests of patients.