Employing a doctor

This page is to help employers to understand their obligations relating to employing and contracting with doctors.

The GMC has a dedicated service to help employers and contracting authorities make pre-employment checks.

Please ensure you read about and understand the dedicated service for employers, and all of your obligations as an employer of doctors.

The New Registration Framework

Limited registration was abolished on 19 October 2007. For more information read our New registration framework for doctors (105kb, pdf)

Approved practice settings

UK graduates and IMGs who are new to full registration and taking up a new job, or restoring their names to the register after a prolonged absence from practice, are required to work within a practice setting approved by the GMC as suitable for doctors new to full registration. We strongly advise EEA graduates to ensure they too work in an APS when they first take up employment in the UK under full registration. We also advise  EEA doctors restored to the register after prolonged absence from UK practice to work initially in an APS.

An approved practice setting (APS) is one which has systems for the effective management of doctors, systems for identifying and acting upon concerns about doctors’ fitness to practise, systems to support the provision of relevant training or continuing professional development, and systems for providing regulatory assurance. This will also help ensure that, in the small number of cases where problems arise, there are systems in place which are capable of detecting them early. For more information please see our guidance on approved practice settings.

If you are employing or contracting with newly fully registered UK graduates or IMGs, you will need to ensure that your organisation is an approved practice setting. Organisations which are currently approved practice settings are listed here.

Please note that all Primary Care organisations (Primary Care Trusts in England, Area Health Boards in Scotland, Local Health Boards in Wales and Health and Social Services Boards or Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland) are automatically granted APS status, but only for the purpose of undertaking managed training; that is Foundation Programme training, or training as a GP Registrar. They are therefore not included in our online list of APS.

All other doctors whose primary care organisations employ or contract with them as GPs need to be on the GP Register. Doctors on the GP Register are not required to work in an approved practice setting.

If you have any queries about an organisation’s APS status, or wish to apply for APS status on behalf of your organisation, please contact nrf@gmc-uk.org.

Helping employers make pre-employment checks

The GMC has a dedicated service to help employers and contracting authorities make pre-employment checks.

If you employ or contract with doctors, please telephone 0161 923 6602 (+44 161 923 6602 from outside the UK) or email registrationhelp@gmc-uk.org for details of how to access this service.

Failure to carry out these checks could put the safety, and even the lives, of patients at risk.

Full information is provided in our sections below:

• Pre-employment checks for employers
• Post-employment checks for employers

Requirement to hold GMC registration

Doctors need to be registered with the GMC to practise medicine in the UK. It is illegal for doctors to work in clinical practice in the UK Health Service if they are not registered.

The type of work that requires doctors to be registered includes:

• Working as a doctor in the UK health service.
• Prescribing drugs, the sale of which is restricted by law.
• Signing medical certificates required for statutory purposes (death certificates, etc.).

Our website holds a complete list of the legal privileges and obligations of registration.

Doctors wishing to work in private practice in the UK also need to register with the GMC.

Pre-employment checks

You should always check that a doctor is registered with the GMC as part of your pre-employment checks.

Doctors appointed as consultants or GPs must, in addition, be on the Specialist or GP Register as appropriate. (Please note: There are exemptions to this - for full details of these exemptions please see the information on Specialist Registration and GP Registration on our Information about Registration page.)

Do not rely on a locum agency to check a doctor's registration status for you. If a doctor has previously been employed elsewhere in the UK, you still need to check their registration details, as their registration status may have changed since they were last employed.

Neither the due date of an Annual Retention Fee nor an Annual Registration Certificate are evidence that a doctor is registered.

A doctor's application for registration must be granted before they can actually start working, and you must confirm their registration status with the GMC before allowing the doctor to start work.

Preparing to take the PLAB test does not mean that a doctor can work in clinical practice in the UK health service without registration.

What and how to check

What to check

The checks you should carry out with the GMC are summarised below.

• Does the doctor hold registration?
• Do any conditions or restrictions apply?
• Is the doctor currently undergoing investigation?
• Does the doctor's reference number you have tally with the GMC's information?
• Are you sure of the doctor's identity?
• If the doctor is hoping to work as a GP in the UK health service, is s/he on the GP Register?
• If the doctor is hoping to work as a consultant in the UK health service, is s/he on the specialist register?

How to check

You should make these checks by using our dedicated service for employers and contracting authorities. Please telephone 0161 923 6602 (+44 161 923 6602 from outside the UK) or email registrationhelp@gmc-uk.org for details of how to access this service.

These checks will tell you whether the appointee is registered with the GMC and whether any special conditions apply.

Extra checks for employers

The NHS Employers' guidance 'Safer recruitment – a guide for NHS employers' (external link) provides useful information about all the other pre-employment checks you should make.

You should also check that the doctor is proficient in English.

Post-employment

List of Registered Medical Practitioners

You should use our online database, the List of Registered Medical Practitioners, to make post-employment checks. The List of Registered Medical Practitioners is in the public domain and gives details of:

• the doctor's reference number, name, any former name, gender
• year and place of primary medical degree
• registration status
• date of registration
• entry in GP / Specialist Register
• any publicly available fitness to practise history since 20 October 2005

Administrative checks

Doctors may be erased from the register for administrative reasons, such as failure to pay their annual fee or failure to maintain an effective registered address. For this reason we strongly recommend that you make regular checks of the registration status of all doctors in your employment, to minimise any unnecessary disruption to your services caused by such erasures. You can check these details by accessing the List of Registered Medical Practitioners.

NHS Employers' guidance states that:

‘NHS organisations should have policies in place to ensure that they regularly check the registration of a health professional whose registration is subject to periodic renewal remains effective and must have policies for dealing with lapsed registrants.'

Doctors who discover that they have been removed from the register under our administrative procedures should contact us urgently on 0161 923 6602 (+44 161 923 6602 from outside the UK) so that they can apply to be restored without delay.

Fitness to practise checks

We will automatically inform you if any doctor you are currently employing or contracting with is subject to a GMC investigation.

You should inform us if you judge that the fitness to practise of a doctor you are employing or contracting with is called into question. Our 'Guide for individual doctors, medical directors and clinical governance managers' provides further information.

Other information

If you need other information relating to a doctor's registration which is not in the public domain, you should use our dedicated information service for employers.

Please telephone 0161 923 6602 (+44 161 923 6602 from outside the UK) or email registrationhelp@gmc-uk.org for details of how to access this service.

Extra checks for employers

Please note employers must make extra checks as well as the checks they make with the GMC. Failure to carry out these checks could put the safety, and even the lives, of patients at risk.

The NHS Employers website (external link) provides useful information about all the other pre-employment checks NHS employers must make.

GMC reference numbers

When doctors first make contact with the GMC they are given a seven digit reference number which they keep throughout their professional career. This reference number is therefore a unique identifier.

Checking the reference number

Having a number does not mean that the doctor is currently on the register, so it is important that you check the doctor's registration details with the GMC. You also need to do this to ensure that the GMC reference number you have been given is correct, and that it belongs to the doctor that you want to employ. Under no circumstances should a doctor use another doctor's GMC reference number.

Displaying names and reference numbers

We have developed guidance requiring doctors to publicise their reference numbers to enable patients and the public to identify them easily.

We look to employers to help doctors comply with this requirement, by displaying their reference numbers wherever possible - for example on stationery, door signs, name plaques.

View our guidance to doctors about names and reference numbers.

Checking a doctor's identity

We require all new applicants for registration to undergo an identity check as part of the application process. This includes taking their photograph, which can be provided to employers to assist with confirmation of the identity and registration of the doctor.

A certificate of registration or confirmation that a doctor is registered with the GMC is not evidence of a doctor's identity. You must undertake your own identity checks when employing a doctor, for example asking for their original passport or an original EEA identity card.

We hold photograph records for:

• All UK graduates who were granted registration after 1 July 2005
• All doctors taking the PLAB test from 1 May 2004
• All EEA doctors who were granted registration after 1 April 2005
• All doctors restored to the register from 1 June 2005
• All other newly registered doctors from 1 August 2005

You can check the photo id held by the GMC for doctors by contacting us on 0161 923 6602 (+44 161 923 6602 from outside the UK) and asking for a copy of the photo held on our system. Please ensure that you provide an email address or fax number to which we can send the photo. We will try to send the photo or advise if one is not available within 24 hours.

If you have any doubts about a doctor's identity please contact the GMC on 0161 923 6602 (+44 161 923 6602 from outside the UK).