Good medical practice has been updated. It sets out the standards of patient care and professional behaviour expected of all doctors in the UK, across all specialties, career stages and sectors.
These standards will also apply to physician associates and anaesthesia associates in the future, once they’re regulated by us.
Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg / Read this page in Welsh
If you’re a doctor on our medical register, you’ll already be familiar with many of the principles in Good medical practice, such as working in partnership with patients and keeping your skills up to date.
You can read through all of the changes in Good medical practice 2024 - what's new in each domain? It’s important to familiarise yourself with the updated standards, which came into effect on 30 January 2024.
The standards focus on behaviours and values which support good team work, make everyone feel safe to speak up, and empower doctors to provide quality care. In particular, we've updated five key areas of Good medical practice to help you to:
To help doctors apply Good medical practice 2024, we’ve also refreshed some supporting pieces of guidance.
These don’t establish new or different standards to those in Good medical practice, they explain more about specific areas which doctors often have questions about or where it’s useful to provide extra detail. These came into effect on 30 January 2024.
Good medical practice is a framework of professional standards to guide you when you’re caring for patients and working with colleagues. The standards describe good practice, but they aren’t a set of rules. You should apply them using your judgement, in the specific circumstances you face.
In response to feedback in our consultation, the updated Good medical practice also includes a detailed explanation about how the standards relate to fitness to practise procedures.
If a concern is raised with us, we will always consider the individual circumstances and take into account any relevant factors known to us, such as:
Read more about our fitness to practise procedures and the support available to doctors.
We work with doctors, patients, and other stakeholders to support good, safe patient care across the UK.
