The timing of recommendations

This page is in Section 2: Considering your recommendation about a doctor’s revalidation - part of the GMC's guide for responsible officers on making revalidation recommendations.

When a recommendation is due

The typical length of a revalidation cycle is five years. Generally, we expect to receive a recommendation about a doctor’s revalidation once every five years.

Typically, the following steps take place before the date by which the GMC expects to receive a recommendation (the ‘submission date’):

• Six months before the submission date, the GMC invites the doctor to confirm their revalidation details (including the identity of their responsible officer (RO) and designated body) on GMC Online
• Four months before the submission date the GMC issues notice to the doctor, informing them of the date by which we expect to receive a recommendation about their revalidation, and informs the RO that notice has been issued

The GMC informs the RO that notice has been issued. Following this:

• The RO submits their recommendation to the GMC - this must be submitted on or before the submission date
• After receiving an RO’s recommendation, the GMC considers the recommendation and makes a decision about the doctor’s revalidation
• The GMC notifies the RO and the doctor when a decision has been made and the content of that decision.

GMC Connect allows ROs to filter doctors according to their submission date. You must submit your recommendations to the GMC on or before the submission date.

When will the GMC accept and process a recommendation?

The GMC will accept and process a positive recommendation or a deferral request once it has issued formal notice to a doctor of their revalidation submission date, usually four months in advance of that date.

However, you can inform us at any other point in the revalidation cycle that a doctor is not engaging in the processes that underpin revalidation.

More information about notifying the GMC of a doctor's non-engagement, before a recommendation is due, is provided elsewhere in Section 2 and in Section 4.

Doctors in training

The principles of revalidation for doctors in training are the same as for all other licensed doctors.

Nevertheless, revalidation takes account of the environment in which doctors in training undertake medical practice. To this end, your recommendations about the revalidation of doctors in training are required at two points:

• five years after a doctor in training has been awarded full registration with a licence to practise
• when a doctor in training becomes eligible to apply for their Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT).

The period of time between the first and second recommendations for doctors in training will be determined by the length of their training programme.

For some doctors in training, therefore, the second revalidation cycle will be shorter than five years. For example, doctors whose training programmes are for eight years will have a three year gap between their first revalidation (at year five) and their second (at year eight).

Changing the original submission date

The five-yearly revalidation cycle is not absolute. The duration of a doctor’s revalidation cycle may vary in certain circumstances such as:

• the initial roll out of revalidation (when recommendations may be made based on the readiness of individual doctors)
• a doctor’s absence from practice for a period of time as a result of a career break or maternity leave.

Under the General Medical Council (Licence to Practise and Revalidation) Regulations 2012 the GMC has the power to vary the timing of a doctor’s revalidation.

In practical terms, this means that the GMC can alter the revalidation submission date. These alterations can be made in response to a request from you, the RO, but also directly by the GMC.

We would expect that, in the majority of cases, an RO would use the deferral process to change a doctor’s recommendation date.

Bringing forward a recommendation submission date

Non-engagement in revalidation before notice is issued

Under the General Medical Council (Licence to Practise and Revalidation) Regulations 2012, the GMC is required to issue notice to a doctor in order to receive a recommendation about their revalidation. Notice is usually issued four months before the GMC is due to receive a recommendation.

As an RO, you can inform the GMC before notice is issued that a doctor is failing to engage in the ongoing local processes and systems that underpin revalidation. The statements that apply to non-engagement are in Section 3 and the criteria for non-engagement are at Section 4.

If a doctor does not begin to engage with the processes that support revalidation, the GMC can bring forward the issue of notice to a doctor. This will bring forward the ‘submission date’ on which a revalidation recommendation is due.

If the doctor continues to fail to engage, you can formally notify the GMC of that failure.

Whatever arrangements we reach with you about the date of the recommendation, it is important that you send in the recommendation within the agreed time period.

Additional time for recommendations

Deferral requests

A doctor’s revalidation cycle may run for more than five years. This is likely to be the result of an RO’s successful request to defer a recommendation about a doctor’s revalidation.

In this circumstance, the GMC would grant your deferral request and set an alternative date on which your recommendation is due.

The statements that apply to deferral requests are in Section 3, and the criteria for deferral requests are at Section 4.

GMC fitness to practise investigations

Where a doctor is the subject of a GMC fitness to practise investigation, the period between recommendations about their revalidation may be longer than five years.

Some doctors may be the subject of an open GMC fitness to practise investigation at the point where they are due to revalidate. In this circumstance, the GMC postpones all activity relating to the doctor’s revalidation until the fitness to practise investigation has concluded.

The reactivation of a doctor’s revalidation cycle will only apply to doctors who remain licensed following the conclusion of a GMC fitness to practise investigation. A doctor who is erased from the medical register as a result of GMC fitness to practise processes no longer holds a licence to practise, and is not subject to revalidation.