Leading and Team Working

Study guide

Unit 2 is about the team as a system: who holds which role, what each may legally do, how work moves between them, and how a team is developed and led so that problems surface early rather than late.

The dental team and scope of practice

The largest sub-topic in the unit. Each registrant group has a defined scope, and the boundaries between them are exactly what gets tested.

• Dentists, dental therapists, dental hygienists, dental technicians, clinical dental technicians, orthodontic therapists and dental nurses are all GDC registrants with distinct scopes.
• Additional skills can extend a dental nurse’s scope — for example radiography, oral health education or impression taking — but only after appropriate training.
• Being trained, being competent and being permitted are three separate tests, and all must be satisfied.

Delegation and referral

Delegation passes a task; it does not pass away accountability. Referral moves the patient to someone with different expertise.

• The person delegating retains responsibility for the decision to delegate and for checking competence.
• The person accepting a delegated task is responsible for performing it safely and for declining if not competent.
• Referral is appropriate when the patient’s needs fall outside the team’s scope; the referral must carry enough information to be acted on.

Management, leadership and team development

The unit distinguishes managing — organising resources and processes — from leading, which is about direction and influence. Both appear in the team-development sub-topics.

• Induction introduces a new team member to the practice’s procedures and expectations, and is a safety measure as much as a courtesy.
• Appraisal is a structured, two-way review that identifies development needs; feedback is most useful when it is specific, timely and behavioural.
• Effective teams have clear roles, shared goals and reliable communication — most team failures trace back to one of those three.

Raising concerns and professional behaviour

A recurring theme across the whole Diploma: a culture where a concern can be raised is a patient-safety mechanism, not an HR nicety.

• Every registrant has a duty to raise a concern about patient safety, regardless of seniority.
• Practices should have a route for raising concerns internally, with external routes available if the internal one fails or is inappropriate.
• Bullying, discrimination and undermining behaviour are professional issues because they suppress concerns.

In the exam Questions frequently give you a task and ask whether a particular team member may do it. Work through scope first, then training, then competence — and remember that a colleague’s instruction never extends your scope.