Our guidance

Our guidance sets out the requirements that every licensed doctor must meet in order to successfully revalidate. It is supported by advice from other organisations, including the medical royal colleges and faculties.

Meeting our requirements in the first revalidation cycle

Our guidance, which we have agreed with the four UK health departments, helps doctors understand how they can meet our appraisal andsupporting information requirements in the first cycle of revalidation. Responsible officers can use this same guidance to assess when doctors will be ready to have a recommendation made about them.

Framework for appraisal and revalidation

Our framework for appraisal and revalidation tells doctors the professional values they need to show they're meeting in their regular appraisal. It’s based on our core guidance for doctors, Good Medical Practice. We are working with employers to ensure this guidance is the focus of every doctor’s appraisal.

Supporting information for appraisal and revalidation

Our supporting information guidance tells doctors the six types of supporting information they will need to bring to their appraisal to show how they are keeping up to date and fit to practise. There will be some information that doctors will need to collect themselves (such as CPD). Doctors’ designated bodies will need to help them collect the rest (such as feedback from colleagues and patients). Designated bodies need to ensure they have clinical governance systems that can provide doctors with the supporting information they need.

Colleague and patient feedback guidance and questionnaires

Feedback from colleagues and patients will be important pieces of supporting information that doctors will need to collect for appraisal and revalidation. We have produced guidance to help organisations develop, commission and analyse feedback for doctors. We have also developed and tested our own colleague and patient questionnaires, which doctors and organisations can use.

Making recommendations

Our responsible officer (RO) protocol is a guide for all responsible officers making recommendations about their doctors. The protocol explains the three types of recommendation that a responsible officer can make and provides detailed criteria for how they should be made. 

The protocol is available as a series of webpages and as PDF version to download. While the PDF version includes the final recommendation statements, you can download a separate PDF version of the recommendation statements.

Revalidation regulations and guidance

The General Medical Council (Licence to Practise and Revalidation) Regulations 2012 commenced on 3 December 2012. We have published the regulations along with a guide, which explains what the regulations mean for doctors, and our consultation report. 

Revalidation FAQs for overseas regulators and overseas organisations

On 3 December 2012, the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council introduced revalidation. All doctors holding registration with a licence to practise with the GMC are now required, by UK law, to regularly demonstrate, usually every five years, that they are up to date and fit to practise.

These FAQs provide further details on revalidation, the licence to practise, and information for doctors who work wholly outside of the UK.