UK Dentist & Dental Professional Register Scraper

Verify UK dental professionals against the General Dental Council (GDC) official public register at olr.gdc-uk.org. Search by name, town, or register type — or look up an exact GDC registration number — to confirm whether a dentist, dental hygienist, dental nurse, dental therapist, dental technician, clinical dental technician, or orthodontic therapist is currently registered and legally able to practise in the UK. No login, no cookies, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Two lookup modes: free-form register search, or exact registration-number lookup
• Search by any combination of: forename, surname, town, register type
• Phonetic ("sounds like") matching on forename and surname — catches spelling variants (e.g. "Steven" / "Stephen", "Smith" / "Smyth")
• Filter by DCP title (Dental Nurse, Dental Hygienist, Dental Therapist, Dental Technician, Clinical Dental Technician, Orthodontic Therapist)
• Filter by specialist-list specialty (Orthodontics, Endodontics, Oral Surgery, Paediatric Dentistry, and 9 more)
• Include/exclude erased registrants — see historical/removed entries when needed
• Handles dual-registered professionals — some individuals hold more than one registration type (e.g. qualified as a Dental Nurse, later became a Dentist); every registration they hold is captured, not just the primary one
• Full result-set pagination — follows the register's own paging so large matches (up to its 250-record cap) are returned in full, not just the first page
• Empty fields are never included — only real, extracted data is emitted

Output per registrant

• registrationNumber — unique GDC registration number
• fullName, firstName, surname
• status — e.g. Registered, Suspended, Erased
• registrantType — e.g. Dentist, Dental Care Professional, Temporary Registrant Dentist
• dcpTitles[] — for Dental Care Professionals: title, firstRegisteredOn, currentPeriodFrom, currentPeriodUntil per title held
• specialties[] — for specialist dentists: specialty, firstRegisteredOn, currentPeriodFrom, currentPeriodUntil per specialty held
• firstRegisteredOn — date first joined the register (ISO YYYY-MM-DD)
• currentPeriodFrom / currentPeriodUntil — current registration period validity dates
• qualifications[] — qualifications as entered on the register
• registrations[] — present only for professionals holding more than one registration type; each entry is a full sub-record (registrantType, status, dates, qualifications, dcpTitles/specialties) for that additional registration
• sourceUrl — direct link to the official GDC register entry
• recordType, scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	search	search (by name/town/register type) or byRegistrationNumbers (exact lookup)
registerType	select	all	all / dentists / specialistLists / dcp / temporaryRegistrantDentist / visitingPractitionerDentist / visitingPractitionerDcp
firstName	string	–	Forename to search for (mode=search)
surname	string	–	Surname to search for (mode=search)
town	string	–	Practice/registered town (mode=search)
firstNameSoundsLike	boolean	false	Phonetic match on forename
surnameSoundsLike	boolean	false	Phonetic match on surname
includeErasedRegistrants	boolean	false	Include erased/removed registrants
dcpTitle	select	– (any)	Restrict to a specific DCP title
specialty	select	– (any)	Restrict to a specific specialist-list specialty
sortBy	select	surname	surname / firstName / registrationNumber / status / registrantType
sortAscending	boolean	true	Sort direction
registrationNumbers	array	["60065"]	Exact GDC registration numbers (mode=byRegistrationNumbers)
maxItems	integer	50	Hard cap on emitted records (1–250 — the register itself caps any single search at 250 matches)

Example: verify a named dentist

{
  "mode": "search",
  "firstName": "John",
  "surname": "Smith",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: find all registered orthodontists in a surname

{
  "mode": "search",
  "registerType": "dentists",
  "surname": "Khan",
  "specialty": "Orthodontics"
}

Example: find dental nurses by town

{
  "mode": "search",
  "registerType": "dcp",
  "dcpTitle": "Dental Nurse",
  "town": "Manchester",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: exact registration-number lookup

{
  "mode": "byRegistrationNumbers",
  "registrationNumbers": ["60065", "77692", "303212"]
}

Use cases

• Employers & recruiters — verify a candidate dentist/DCP holds a current, valid GDC registration before hiring
• Patients — confirm a dental professional treating them is legitimately registered
• Dental practices — bulk-verify staff registration status and renewal dates ahead of CQC inspections
• Insurance & compliance — cross-check registration status and specialty claims
• Recruitment agencies — build verified candidate shortlists filtered by specialty or DCP title
• Researchers — analyse the composition of the UK dental workforce by region, title, or specialty

FAQ

What's the GDC register? The General Dental Council is the UK statutory regulator for dentistry. Anyone practising as a dentist or dental care professional (dental nurse, hygienist, therapist, technician, clinical dental technician, orthodontic therapist) in the UK must be registered with the GDC. The register is public and updated daily.

Why did my search return no records? Either no registrant matches your filters, or your search matched more than 250 records and the register asks you to narrow it (add a forename, town, or specialty). The actor reports which case applies via the run's status message.

What does "sounds like" mean? It's a phonetic match, so spelling variants of a name (e.g. "Catherine"/"Katherine", "Smith"/"Smyth") are matched even if you don't know the exact spelling used on the register.

What is a dual-registered professional? Some people hold more than one registration under the same GDC number — for example, someone who first qualified and registered as a Dental Nurse and later trained and registered as a Dentist. For these records, the primary registration is shown at the top level and every registration they hold appears in the registrations field.

Does this include specialist dentists? Yes — registerType: specialistLists combined with the specialty filter surfaces dentists holding one of the 13 GDC specialist-list specialties (Orthodontics, Endodontics, Oral Surgery, etc.), each with their own registration dates for that specialty.

Is erased/removed data included? Only when includeErasedRegistrants is set to true. By default, only current registrants are returned.

How fresh is the data? The GDC register itself states it is updated daily, and every run of this actor reads the register live.

Do I need a proxy or login? No — the register is a public government-regulator service with no rate-limiting or anti-bot measures encountered in normal use, so no proxy or cookies are required.