Good practice in research
About this guidance
In our core guidance, Good Medical Practice1, we advise doctors who are involved in research that:
- You must help to resolve uncertainties about the effects of treatments. (Paragraph 14f)
- Research involving people directly or indirectly is vital in improving care and reducing uncertainty for patients now and in the future, and improving the health of the population as a whole. (Paragraph 70)
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If you are involved in designing, organising or carrying out research, you must put the protection of participants’ interests first, act with honesty and integrity and follow the appropriate national research governance guidelines. (Paragraph 71)
This supplementary guidance is intended to provide more detailed advice about how to comply with these principles. It should be read in conjunction with our other guidance, in particular:
- Consent to research, which explains how the principles in Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together2 apply to research,
- Confidentiality3, which gives guidance on research and other secondary uses of data, and
- 0-18 years: guidance for all doctors, which gives additional advice on research involving children or young people.
Together, these guidance documents set out the GMC’s advice to doctors involved in research. You must use your judgement in applying the principles in the guidance to the types of research you undertake, and to the situations you face in practice as a doctor, whether or not you hold a licence to practise. Serious or persistent failure to follow the guidance will put your registration at risk.
Using Good practice in research on-line
- To read the guidance as it appears in the print version, you can use the navigation arrows at the bottom of the page. Begin reading.
- For an overview of Good practice in research you can use the contents page.
- You can use the links in the boxes on the right to access further GMC guidance and external web links. Where a link refers to a specific paragraph or bullet point, this is indicated using square brackets (for example [4d] Consent guidance).
- You can search all our current ethical guidance, including Good practice in research, using our A-Z of Ethical Guidance.