What Dental Websites Must Show Under GDC Guidance

A dental practice website has to show more than opening hours and a booking button. GDC guidance sets out details that must appear on every practice website and beside every dental professional the website names, while the advertising rules limit what treatment pages can claim. Anyone responsible for websites for dental practices and clinics needs to know where those lines sit before a page goes live.

The sections below cover the GDC list, specialist titles, prices, complaints, treatment claims, before and after photos and CQC information. It is a practical summary for practice managers and marketing teams rather than legal advice, so check anything uncertain against the source guidance or with a professional adviser.

What GDC Guidance Requires on a Dental Practice Website

GDC guidance requires a practice website to show who provides the care, where it is provided, how to contact the practice and the GDC, how to complain and when the website was last updated. The list comes from the GDC guidance on advertising, which carries weight because standard 1.3.3 of the Standards for the Dental Team requires advertising and other practice information to be accurate, not misleading and in line with that guidance.

The guidance splits the requirements into two groups. Some apply to the practice website as a whole and others apply to each dental professional the website mentions as providing care.

The NHS or private status comes from the advertising section of the same guidance rather than the website list, but it belongs on the website because the guidance applies it to all practice publicity. A patient deciding whether to book should be able to tell from the home page which kind of care the practice offers.

Why the GDC List Looks the Way It Does

The GDC list closely follows the general information duties UK law places on anyone offering services online. Under regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 a service provider has to make its name, geographic address and email address easily available. A provider in a regulated profession must also give its professional body, its professional title and a reference to the professional rules that apply to it.

That explains why the GDC asks for contact details for the regulator and the country where each qualification was gained. The GDC guidance itself cites European guidance on electronic commerce as the basis for its website section, so the two sets of requirements point the same way.

How to Show Registration Numbers and Qualifications on Team Pages

Every dental professional the website names as providing care needs their GDC registration number, their professional qualification and the country that qualification came from shown with their name. A team page that lists a clinician by first name and photograph alone does not meet the guidance. Neither does a page that shows numbers for the dentists but leaves them out for the hygienists or therapists it names.

Patients can check any number on the GDC online register, so a mistyped or outdated number damages trust as well as compliance. The guidance also says memberships, fellowships and honorary degrees must not be listed in abbreviated form, because patients may read letters after a name as further qualifications.

Two more rules affect how profiles are written. The website must not compare the skills or qualifications of one dental professional with those of others. The team information also has to be updated regularly so it reflects the people working at the practice and the services on offer. Clear profiles also help patients decide who to see, a point covered in our guide to building patient trust through healthcare website design.

The same template can show the date each profile was last reviewed. That gives the practice manager a quick way to spot profiles for people who have left the practice or changed role.

When a Dentist Can Use the Title Specialist

A dentist can only call themselves a specialist, or describe themselves as a specialist in a field, if they are on one of the GDC specialist lists. The GDC explains on its specialist lists page that dentists do not need to join a list to practise in a particular specialty, but only those on the list can use the title.

The advertising guidance also rules out titles that imply specialist status. A dentist who is not on the relevant list must not call themselves an orthodontist, periodontist or endodontist. There are no specialist lists for dental care professionals at all.

Check the wording around the title as well as the title itself. A page headed implant specialist for a dentist who is not on a specialist list creates the same impression as a profile that uses the title, so page headings, meta titles and image alt text need the same check as the visible copy.

Words such as expert and leading raise a similar question when they sit next to a clinician’s name. Before using them, ask whether a patient could read the word as a claim to specialist status or to skills the profile cannot back up.

Treatment Claims and Before and After Photos Under the ASA

The CAP Code applies to claims a dental practice makes on its own website, so treatment pages and galleries have to meet the same advertising rules as paid adverts. The scope of the CAP Code covers marketing communications by organisations on their own websites when they are directly connected with the supply of their services, which takes in most treatment and offer pages.

The CAP Code has a dedicated section for health treatments and the products used in them. In section 12 of the CAP Code, rule 12.1 requires objective claims to be backed by evidence, rule 12.3 says practitioners must have relevant and recognised qualifications and rule 12.12 says medicines or treatments available only on prescription may not be advertised to the public.

That last rule matters for practices offering facial aesthetics alongside dentistry. The ASA’s advice on before and after photos names botulinum toxin brands as prescription only medicines and warns that before and after images of such a product are very likely to be seen as an implied advert, even without any accompanying claim.

Before and after photos of dental treatment can be used, but the ASA treats them in the same way as testimonials. The same advice says marketers should hold signed and dated proof that the photos are genuine and have not been manipulated. It cites a ruling involving a dental practice on that point.

Whitening claims attract particular attention. The ASA’s advice on teeth whitening says marketers should be able to show that whiter teeth are the result of the product rather than digital manipulation. Claims of fast results or results that last also need evidence to match, according to the same advice.

The GDC adds its own rule for promotion on social media and other marketing platforms. Its advertising guidance says practices promoting treatment there must make clear that the treatment may not be appropriate for every patient and depends on a satisfactory assessment. The same wording sits well on any treatment page that leads with an offer.

Price Information Patients Should Not Have to Ask For

GDC standards say patients should not have to ask for price information, which means the website needs clear prices rather than an invitation to call. Standard 2.4.2 in principle two of the Standards for the Dental Team requires clear information on prices in practice literature and on websites. Standard 2.4.1 lists the basic items a practice price list should cover, from a consultation and a single surface filling to an extraction, radiographs and hygienist treatment.

Where the cost of an item varies, the standards allow a price range rather than a single figure. Standard 2.4.3 adds that patients should be told whether treatment is guaranteed, under what circumstances and for how long, so a treatment page that mentions a guarantee needs those conditions next to it.

The electronic commerce rules covered earlier also require any prices quoted online to be clear and unambiguous, including whether they include tax. A price page that lists items without saying what each one includes falls short of both sets of rules.

Price information is also under wider scrutiny. The Competition and Markets Authority launched a review of private dentistry in March 2026 that looks at how people compare providers and understand the information they receive. Its market study case page lists a final report for March 2027.

Complaints Information and Who Patients Can Contact

A practice website must explain the complaints procedure and tell patients who to contact if they are not satisfied with the practice’s response. For NHS treatment that is the relevant NHS body and for private treatment it is the Dental Complaints Service, which helps with private dental complaints across the UK and is funded by the GDC while operating independently.

Principle five of the standards sets out how the procedure itself should work. Under standard 5.1.5, the complaints procedure should be displayed where patients can see it, written in plain language and include information on independent organisations patients can contact. A dedicated complaints page linked from the footer is the usual way to meet that online.

Mixed practices need both routes on the page, explained in a way a patient can follow. The Dental Complaints Service notes that patients may not know whether their care was NHS or private, so stating the route for each type of treatment saves a confused patient from contacting the wrong body first.

Displaying CQC Information on a Dental Website

Most dental practices registered with CQC have no rating to display, because CQC does not rate primary dental services. CQC’s explanation of its ratings and scores says it does not have the legal power to rate some kinds of services. It gives dental practices as the example.

Practices can still show that they are regulated. CQC’s guidance on how providers must display ratings says services it does not rate receive a judgement on whether they meet the regulations. Any registered provider may use its Regulated by graphics. Where a provider does hold a rating, the same guidance says it must appear on websites that describe the service within 21 calendar days of CQC publishing it.

That situation can arise when the organisation running the practice also provides other regulated services that CQC does rate. In that case regulation 20A requires every website the provider maintains to show the CQC website address, where the latest assessment can be read and the most recent rating. Each rating shown must carry the date it was given and be legible and conspicuous.

Linking to the practice’s CQC location page from the footer gives patients the inspection detail behind any badge or graphic. It also keeps the website accurate when a new report is published, because the link opens whatever CQC has published most recently.

Keeping a Dental Website Compliant After Launch

A dental website stays compliant only if someone checks it whenever the team, treatments or prices change. The GDC guidance asks for website information to be updated regularly and for the website to show the date it was last updated, so a stale team page or an old price list is a compliance problem as well as a poor experience for patients.

Problems often appear after launch, when a new clinician is added in a hurry or a promotion is copied across from social media. Building the checks into the routine of whoever edits the website keeps the GDC, ASA and CQC requirements in view. Our guide to dental website design covers how those details fit into the wider build.

The rules themselves may also change. Scottish Dental Magazine reported in September 2026 that the GDC had consulted on replacing the Standards for the Dental Team with a new Framework for Professionalism. The standard numbers quoted above could therefore change, even if the expectations behind them stay the same.

Data protection sits alongside these checks, since booking and enquiry forms can collect health information that UK law protects more closely than other personal data. Our guide to GDPR and patient data on healthcare websites covers the privacy side. Practices that want the routine handled for them can use ongoing WordPress support to keep updates, checks and fixes on a schedule.