Verify your evidence

  1. Summary
  2. Eligibility
  3. Specialities and Curricula
  4. Specialty Specific Guidance
  5. Evidence anonymisation (redaction)
  6. CV and Professional Experience
  7. Verify your evidence
  1. Authentication and Translation
  2. Referees
  3. Ready to apply?
  4. Application process
  5. Application decision
  6. FAQ's
  7. User Guides

The majority of your evidence needs to be verified. This applies to all documents that relate to your training and experience. A list of the evidence that needs to be verified can be found in the pro-forma provided below.

Choose your verifiers

Training and experience evidence must be verified by someone in a medical supervisory, such as a consultant, position who:

  • works at the hospital where the training or experience took place
  • must be able to confirm that it’s a true and accurate record.
  • must be available for us to contact in the 3-6 months after you submit your evidence.

Employment letters and job descriptions can be verified by someone in Human Resources or Medical Staffing at the hospital the evidence relates to, but this can also be done by a consultant.

Pro-formas must only be signed off by one verifier so if you’re asking someone in HR or Medical Staffing to verify some of your evidence, they will need to complete a separate pro-forma for the evidence they’re verifying. You should only provide one pro-forma per hospital/institution you are providing evidence from.

We often have to return documents to applicants because they have not provided pro-formas or they have not been verified by an appropriate person. Evidence can’t be verified by a solicitor or hospital admin staff, as they won’t have the necessary clinical knowledge needed to confirm your documents are a true reflection of your work or have access to the relevant systems and information to be able to do this.

Your current hospital can’t verify evidence from any other institutions.

Evidence that you don’t need to verify

  • any evidence that requires authentication. You can find out which documents need authentication by checking our specialty specific guidance
  • your CV
  • 360 and multi-source feedback
  • continuing professional development (CPD) certificates, courses relevant to the curriculum, evidence of attendance at teaching or appraisal courses
  • publications (those available in the public domain)
  • reflective notes or diaries
  • honours, prizes, awards or discretionary points.
  • Thank you cards and testimonials

You must still provide copies of the above evidence as part of your application.

How to have evidence verified

  1. Identify one verifier per institution you’re drawing evidence from. As stated above, your verifier should be someone in a medical supervisory role.
  2. Complete a pro-forma for each verifier electronically. There should be one for pro-forma for each separate institution your evidence is drawn from - including institutions overseas that you wish to provide evidence from. Download the pro-forma for verified evidence.
  3. Ask your verifier to check your evidence against the pro-forma you’ve filled in as a guide - they should check any necessary records to make sure the evidence provided is accurate.
  4. You must only list the evidence on the proforma that your verifier can verify for you. Once the verifier has checked your evidence, they’ll need to complete parts 04 and 05 of the pro-forma electronically. View our guidance for verifiers.

You need to provide pro-formas for each submission of evidence throughout your application.

Completing the proforma

  1. Complete parts 01-03 of the pro-forma. Once you’ve done this send it to your verifier to complete parts 04-05. Please make sure your verifier has completed these sections in full, or the pro-forma will not be accepted. Your application evidence will not be processed until a fully completed proforma is received.

You must:

  • List the exact names of the files as they appear in your online application.
    You should name your files in line with our Application and evidence guidance. This is important as the document title is included in the evidence index information for the evaluator.
  •  List the exact number of pages in the document

   2. Once complete send it to your verifier with your evidence. Your verifier must be:

  • someone in a medical supervisory position who works at the hospital where the training/experience took place.
  • contactable six months from your application submission date.
  • able to confirm that the evidence you have provided is a true and accurate record.

   3. You must complete a separate pro-forma for each verifier. Only one verifier is required for each hospital/institution.

   4. Parts 04–05 must be completed by your verifier.

We won’t submit evidence to the evaluators for assessment unless it’s been correctly verified. Any evidence not correctly verified will not be accepted.

Uploading proformas

Your pro-formas must be uploaded electronically in the relevant section provided within the application. If your pro-formas aren’t provided in the relevant section, your application may be delayed.

It’s your responsibility to make sure you have all the pro-formas from your verifiers uploaded in your online application alongside your evidence, before you send this to us. If you don’t provide pro-formas in line with our guidance your application may be withdrawn.

Verification process

  • We’ll contact the verifiers listed on your pro-formas we will ask that they confirm they verified your evidence and provide information related to their role and the institution they are verifying evidence from.
  • As part of the verification process, we may need them to set up an account for our secure document sharing site, GMC Connect to enable us to verify a proportion of your evidence later in your application
  • After we’ve reviewed the evidence provided for your application and you’re happy for us to send your application for evaluation, we’ll send your verifiers a sample of your evidence to verify against the pro-forma you’ve provided. We will ask your verifiers; that they verified the evidence contained in the sample and that the evidence is an accurate record of your experience.
  • List the exact number of pages in the document.
  • Your application will not be submitted for evaluation until we receive the required response(s) from your verifiers

Verifier responses

  • We’ll give your verifier two weeks to verify the sample of evidence we have selected from the documents we’ve accepted as part of your application – we’ll share the sample of your documents via our secure document sharing site GMC Connect
  • If we don’t receive a response, we’ll contact them and allow them a further week to respond and we will let you know when we have done so.
  • If don’t receive a response from your verifier, we’ll let you know and may suggest you provide an alternative verifier, who will need to complete a new pro-forma. We’ll offer you a short extension for your application to assist you but choosing a new verifier could delay your application
  • Where we’re unable to verify your evidence, we won’t be able to accept any of the evidence listed on the proforma for that hospital/institution.
  • Where we’ve been unable to verify evidence, we’ll give you the option of proceeding with your application without this evidence or withdrawing your application until you’re confident we’ll be able to verify it
  • If you withdraw your application before it’s submitted to the royal college or faculty for evaluation, we’ll give you a partial refund.

If you’re having difficulty finding an appropriate verifier, contact us to discuss your options. Call 0161 923 6602 or email portfolio@gmc-uk.org.

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