Revalidation (rebuilt)

What is revalidation?

Revalidation is the process by which all licensed doctors are required to demonstrate on a regular basis that they are up to date and fit to practise in their chosen field and able to provide a good level of care. This means that holding a licence to practise is becoming an indicator that the doctor continues to meet the professional standards set by the GMC and the specialists standard set by the medical Royal Colleges and Faculties.

Revalidation aims to give extra confidence to patients that their doctor is being regularly checked by their employer and the GMC.

Licensed doctors have to revalidate usually every five years, by having annual appraisal based on our core guidance for doctors.

This page provides information about revalidation for doctors in training.

Every doctor who is fully registered with a licence to practise needs to participate in revalidation. This includes doctors who are in training.

Doctors in training are those who:

• are in foundation year two
• are in a GMC approved LETB/deanery training programme or post
• have a fixed term specialty training appointment (FTSTA)
• have a locum appointment for training (LAT).

Postgraduate medical education organisations are responsible for doctors in training. In England, this is the responsibility of the local education and training boards (LETB). Elsewhere in the UK, deaneries have this responsibility.

If you’re a doctor who is in foundation year one and have provisional registration, you do not need to revalidate and you won’t have a connection to a designated body. Once you move on to foundation year two, that’s when you will start to participate in revalidation.