Credentialing and postgraduate training

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

The standards and outcomes required for award of a CCT will not change. The content of postgraduate curricula will continue to be 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. We seek this assurance through our credential approval process.

Credentials and subspecialties

GMC credentials are being introduced to 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 their curricula, and this will apply equally to credentials. We will review these approaches and updates through our existing postgraduate quality assurance processes.

Maintenance

As with recognition on the specialist register, most credentials will not have an ongoing maintenance process, although this may be necessary if credentials are developed in areas where there are fewer existing clinical governance systems in place. Doctors with credentials will need to continue to demonstrate competence within their whole scope of practice as part of appraisal and revalidation.