Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice

Making recommendations about doctors

We will revalidate a doctor, usually every five years, based on a recommendation that we receive from the responsible officer of their designated body.

Our implementation principles, which we have agreed with the four UK health departments, say that we expect all responsible officers to have started to make recommendations about doctors by the end of March 2014.

Types of recommendation

At that point that a doctor needs to revalidate, their responsible officer can make one of three recommendations. They can:

  • make a positive recommendation that the doctor is up to date, fit to practise and should be revalidated
  • request a deferral because they need more information to make a recommendation about the doctor. This might happen if the doctor has taken a break from their practice (for example, maternity or sick leave).
  • or notify us that the doctor has failed to engage with any of the local systems or processes (such as appraisal) that support revalidation.

Our guidance for responsible officers

We expect responsible officers to make their recommendations in a fair, consistent and objective way, so that doctors and patients can have confidence in the way doctors are revalidated.

We have published guidance to help responsible officers make their recommendations about doctors. This includes clear criteria for making recommendations.

We have also published the statements that underpin the three types of recommendation that a responsible officer can make. Download our revalidation recommendation statements (pdf).

GMC Connect

Responsible officers are using GMC Connect, a secure part of our website, to manage their lists of doctors that have a connection to their designated bodies. Now that revalidation has started, they will also use GMC Connect to make recommendations about doctors.

For more information, please visit our GMC Connect page.

Suitable persons

Our revalidation regulations allow us to accept recommendations for doctors made by ‘suitable people’ on behalf of doctors who do not have a responsible officer. This will allow some doctors who do not currently have a connection to engage in local systems and revalidate. Read more about 'suitable persons'.