Credentialing - our role

Awarding, withholding, appeals

We carry out appropriate checks before awarding a credential and updating a doctor’s entry on the register. If there is any fitness to practice activity, we will postpone a decision on award of the credential until this is resolved. Appeals are managed by the statutory education bodies.

Review and evaluation

Our standards require organisations that design credential curricula to have processes in place to evaluate and continuously improve them. This requirement applies equally to all credentials.

We review credentials through our postgraduate quality assurance processes to make sure they continue to meet our standards and support safe, high-quality care. As part of this, credentialing bodies must provide evidence that they are effectively quality managing their credential. This includes demonstrating how they monitor delivery, review outcomes, and respond to feedback or emerging risks.

We use this information, alongside our wider quality assurance activity, to assess whether the credential continues to meet the expected standards and remains appropriate for the needs of patients and the service.

Maintenance

Doctors with credentials must continue to demonstrate competence across their whole scope of practice through appraisal and revalidation.

Removals

A GMC credential may be removed from a doctor in the following circumstances: 

• a request by the doctor that they no longer wish to have the credential 
• the credential was awarded because of an administrative error 
• it can be demonstrated that the credential had been obtained fraudulently. 

Non-mandatory 

The GMC does not have the legal authority to make any postgraduate training mandatory, including credentials.