Mandatory training and revalidation: what the GMC requires

Doctors often ask whether they must complete mandatory training to revalidate. The short answer is that mandatory training is mostly an employer requirement, not a GMC one. This guide sets out what the GMC and one royal college say.

The GMC’s requirements centre on an annual appraisal that has Good medical practice as its focus, covers all of your UK medical practice, and is with an appropriately appointed and trained appraiser, together with the six types of supporting information. Its published requirements don’t include a list of mandatory courses. The GMC also says it doesn’t require you to use any particular appraisal portfolio tool or system.

The GMC says the organisation where you work may set other appraisal or contractual requirements as part of your employment. Those are a matter for employers, and they are not GMC requirements.

• Failure to meet local requirements may be discussed at your appraisal, but should not influence your revalidation recommendation.
• In its guidance to responsible officers, the GMC gives completion of health and safety training as an example of an additional local requirement, and says it should be dealt with through local processes rather than affect the recommendation.
• Only in exceptional circumstances, where your responsible officer or suitable person satisfies the GMC that a significant failure to meet local requirements means you aren’t engaging with revalidation, would the GMC consider local requirements in its decision.

The College lists “the GMC requires doctors to complete mandatory training annually in order to revalidate” as a myth. It says the GMC sets no specific revalidation requirements in relation to CPD or particular types of training, and that in many areas responsible officers ask doctors to include extra training in their appraisal portfolio for convenience and so organisational requirements are understood.

It also says you can count mandatory training as CPD: it recommends that all learning activity be eligible, and that you reflect on contractual or required training, record when you completed it and note the lessons learned and any changes you made. If several of your roles have the same training requirement, such as equality and diversity, it recommends negotiating so one course meets all of them, to avoid repeating it for each employer.

1. Do the training your employer requires. It is a condition of your job, even if it isn’t a GMC requirement.
2. Bring a record to appraisal if your organisation asks. Your responsible officer may ask for it in your portfolio.
3. Treat it as CPD where you learned something. Record when you did it and what you took from it. See CPD for appraisal.
4. If you work for several organisations, ask whether training from one will be accepted by the others.
5. If you have no responsible officer or suitable person, the GMC’s requirements don’t include a mandatory training list. Ask your appraiser what is sensible for your scope of practice.

See our revalidation checklist.

GMC, Revalidation requirements for doctors; Making a revalidation recommendation: part 2; Royal College of Psychiatrists, Revalidation mythbusters: CPD.