Once you’re approved as a suitable person

Your roles and responsibilities

• Follow all revalidation guidance and instructions for responsible officers, including the GMC protocol for making revalidation recommendations, except where we specify otherwise.
• Make recommendations for your connected doctors by their submission date using GMC Connect. There is no limit to the number of doctors you can act as suitable person for. But you must be confident you have the appropriate systems and resources to make recommendations for your connected doctors on time.
• Comply with reasonable requests for information that we, designated bodies and other suitable persons make, in line with data protection legislation.
• Discuss your role as a suitable person with your own appraiser, responsible officer or suitable person as part of your revalidation.
• Tell your connected doctors about any fees you will charge for appraisals or suitable person functions.
• Make sure you agree this with them before you start to act as their suitable person (we can't tell you what this fee should be).
• Maintain a list of your connected doctors using GMC Connect.
• Make sure there are no conflicts of interest with your connected doctor.

We also recommend you attend our suitable person network groups. These take place at our offices in London and Manchester, and provide a good opportunity to meet other suitable persons, talk about challenges and share best practice. We strongly recommend you attend as this is a factor we consider when checking that you still meet the criteria to be a suitable person.

If you need advice, you can also talk to our Outreach team.

Our checks and guidance

We may need to tell others that you've been approved as a suitable person. For example:

• your responsible officer, who may be able to advise you in your capacity as a suitable person
• the organisation that doctors for whom you are responsible are providing services for, to confirm they are content for you to continue in the role
• doctors seeking a suitable person, who may fit within the scope of the doctors you have been approved for.

We carry out regular checks to make sure you meet our suitable person criteria. These include operational checks and a self-declaration. If we decide you no longer satisfy the criteria, we may withdraw our approval. Our guidance on remaining a suitable person sets out how we monitor your compliance.

We also have guidance about the way we respond to information that raises concerns about the systems or processes used to make recommendations about a doctor’s revalidation.