Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice

Criteria for positive recommendations

This page is in Section 4: Criteria for responsible officer recommendations - part of the GMC's guide for responsible officers on making revalidation recommendations.

These criteria describe the circumstances in which you, as a responsible officer (RO), can make a positive recommendation about a doctor’s revalidation to the GMC.

These criteria apply only to the licensed doctors for whom you are the RO. You cannot make a recommendation about a doctor if you are not their RO.

The ways in which doctors will have a prescribed connection to a designated body are set out in the Responsible Officer regulations 2010.

Criteria for doctors in training

The designated body for trainees is the postgraduate deanery or NHS Education for Scotland.

As an RO, when you make a positive recommendation for a doctor who is in a postgraduate training programme, you must agree that the following two criteria have been met. These are reflected in the statements that you must agree when you submit a positive recommendation to the GMC:

  • the doctor has participated in the assessments and curriculum requirements of their training programme reflecting the values and principles set out in Good Medical Practice

  • the doctor has presented and discussed appropriate supporting information at trainee assessments in accordance with the requirements of their training programme and the GMC’s guidance Supporting Information for appraisal and revalidation (pdf).

Doctors in training are not required to undertake additional activities outside of the requirements of their training programme.

Criteria for all other licensed doctors

To make a positive recommendation about a doctor’s revalidation, as an RO you must agree that the following criteria have been met. These criteria reflect the statements that you must agree when you submit a positive recommendation to the GMC:

  • the doctor is participating in an annual appraisal process with Good Medical Practice as its focus

  • the doctor has collected the required information for revalidation as outlined in the GMC’s guidance Supporting information for appraisal and revalidation 

  • in your judgement, the doctor has collected and reflected on supporting information drawn from across the whole of their practice

  • you have considered the relevant information from local clinical and corporate governance systems

  • based on the information available to you, there are no unaddressed concerns about the doctor’s fitness to practise that need to be raised with the GMC.

When you should not make a positive recommendation

You should not make a positive recommendation if the following circumstances apply:

  • the doctor has not provided all of the required elements set out in the GMC’s guidance Supporting information for appraisal and revalidation 

  • you wish to consider the outputs of an ongoing or recently concluded local process

  • there are unaddressed concerns about the doctor’s fitness to practise

  • the doctor’s fitness to practise is being investigated by the GMC

  • the doctor has not engaged in local processes that underpin revalidation.

At any point before you submit your recommendation, you can seek advice from the GMC Employer Liaison Adviser (ELA) for your area.