Checking doctors' practice

Revalidation will help us oversee doctors’ practice on behalf of patients by ensuring there are regular local checks that doctors are meeting our professional standards and making sure they are up to date in the way they practise.

All doctors have a professional responsibility to practise according to Good Medical Practice. This is our core guidance for doctors. It sets out the professional values that doctors must follow. It also helps patients to understand what they can expect from a doctor when they receive treatment from them.

Most doctors already have a regular appraisal, but the focus and content can vary from one place to the next. The introduction of revalidation will mean that every licensed doctor will have their practice regularly evaluated against the standards that we set them as their regulator. We believe this will give you greater confidence in the doctors who treat you.

As part of their regular appraisal, doctors will be expected to think about their practice and consider the areas in which they could improve their practice in the future. Over time we believe this focus on doctors’ development will help to improve both the care that patients receive and the safety of that care.

We’ll revalidate a doctor based on a recommendation that we receive from their ‘responsible officer’. This person will usually be the doctor’s medical director. They will make their recommendation based on a doctor’s appraisals over a five year period. They will only make such a recommendation if there are no outstanding concerns about that doctor’s practice.