Revalidation: nine months to go

This month we are starting to ask doctors to tell us which organisation gives them their appraisal and will be supporting them with revalidation. This is called their ‘designated body’.

We need to know each licensed doctor’s designated body before revalidation begins. This will make sure everyone is supported and that we know who will be making recommendations about each doctor’s revalidation.  

We are writing first to those doctors who work entirely outside the NHS. There are around 60,000 of them across the UK.  

We will send these doctors a pack of information explaining how to work out who their designated body is and how to use the GMC Online facility on our website to tell us this. For most doctors, this will be very straightforward. We will write to everyone else with this information in the autumn.  

What to do if you don’t hear from us immediately

You do not need to tell us who your designated body is until you hear from us. But if you want to work this out, or find out more, you can visit our updated revalidation web pages.  

Until then, all you need to do is make sure that you are having an appraisal that is based on Good Medical Practice and collecting supporting information. You should also set up a GMC Online account if you do not already have one.  

Patient and colleague questionnaires

We have just published our patient and colleague questionnaires, which you might find it helpful to look at. 

The questionnaires, based on Good Medical Practice, have been tested with nearly 1,500 doctors, 44,000 patients and 21,000 colleagues. Although your employer may choose to use a slightly different format of questionnaire, it will meet the same standards as the GMC version so these should give you a good idea of what to expect.