Credentialing and postgraduate training

Our credential approval process focused on patient safety, limiting GMC credentials to where they were a proportionate response.

The standards and outcomes required for the award of a certificate of completion of training (CCT) have not changed. Postgraduate curricula are updated to reflect emerging patient and service need independently of credentialing.

Where an area is a requirement for all doctors in a specialty, it must be included in the postgraduate training curriculum.

Credentials and subspecialties

GMC credentials address areas of patient safety or service need, whether that is due to a lack of regulation in a particular area of practice or because the existing training pathways do not meet the level of demand in the service. Credentials are standalone qualifications, unlike subspecialties and special interest areas included in specialty training.

Review and evaluation

Our standards require organisations designing curricula to have processes in place to evaluate and continuously improve these, and this applies equally to credentials. We will review credentials through our existing postgraduate quality assurance processes.

Maintenance

As with recognition on the specialist register, credentials do not have an ongoing maintenance process. Doctors with credentials will need to continue to demonstrate competence within their whole scope of practice as part of appraisal and revalidation.