GMC: what doctors need for revalidation and fitness to practise

Good medical practice 2024 has been in force since 30 January 2024. It replaced the 2013 edition and is organised into four domains:

• Knowledge, skills and development: keeping your practice up to date, working within your competence and reflecting on your performance.
• Patients, partnership and communication: treating patients as partners, sharing information they want or need, consent and shared decision-making.
• Colleagues, culture and safety: a new emphasis on respectful workplaces, speaking up, supporting colleagues and tackling bullying, harassment and discrimination.
• Trust and professionalism: honesty, probity, openness when things go wrong, and conduct inside and outside work, including online.

Appraisal discussions in many organisations are structured around these same domains, so it helps to know which domain a piece of learning supports before you log it. Each course description further down names the domains it covers.

The GMC also publishes more detailed ethical guidance, for example on consent, confidentiality and professional boundaries. Good medical practice sits above that guidance; the detailed guidance explains how to apply it.

These are the requirements as the GMC states them. We keep this short on purpose: your responsible officer and your appraiser are the people who apply them to you.

The last row trips people up. The GMC cares less about how many hours you log and more about whether your CPD covers your whole scope of practice and whether you have reflected on it. Your college may still set a credit expectation, so check theirs as well.

Log each activity as you go in the CPD tracker. It stores entries only in your browser and exports a summary for your appraisal portfolio.

All courses are self-paced and taken on our course portal. Each one finishes with a guided reflective account and the assessment described above. Learning time comes from each course file.

Professionalism and Professional Standards for Doctors (about 2 hours)

A walk through Good medical practice in daily work. It covers registration, licensing, appraisal and revalidation; leadership, supervision and working with physician associates; speaking up; boundaries, including conduct outside work and online; and what happens in a GMC fitness to practise investigation, followed by steps for remediation. Domains: all four, with most weight on Trust and professionalism and on Colleagues, culture and safety.

Ethics and Ethical Standards for Doctors (about 2 hours)

The core principles applied to medicine: autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence, justice and confidentiality. It also covers capacity, best interests and advance decisions; ethics at the end of life; the GMC's ethical guidance framework; the duty of candour; record-keeping; conscientious objection; and boundaries. It closes with common breaches and how the GMC responds to them. Domains: Patients, partnership and communication; Trust and professionalism.

Medical Ethics for Healthcare Professionals (about 3 hours)

A longer, multi-professional course built around dilemmas. It covers ethical theory, the law on confidentiality and disclosure, mental health law and compulsory treatment, research ethics, artificial intelligence, resource allocation, moral distress and conscience. It suits doctors who want depth rather than a GMC-only summary. Domains: Knowledge, skills and development; Patients, partnership and communication.

Module on Insight (about 2 hours)

What insight is, when it is needed, how to build it, and how regulators assess it in investigations and hearings. Useful at appraisal after a significant event, and essential reading if you are facing a concern.

Reflection for Healthcare Professionals (about 2 hours)

Structured models including Gibbs' reflective cycle, one event written up three ways, weak and strong sample reflections, anonymisation, and what is and is not legally protected in written reflection. It is directly relevant to the GMC's expectation that you reflect on supporting information.

Remediation for Healthcare Professionals (about 2 hours)

Root cause analysis, building a remediation plan, the evidence that carries weight, and preventing recurrence. It includes a worked plan and a section on building a remediation portfolio for a hearing. You can add it from the course list on this page.

We say this plainly because it matters to you. A course certificate is evidence that you learned something. It is not, by itself, evidence of insight or of changed practice. A tribunal or case examiner will want to see:

• learning that is clearly relevant to the specific concern, not general CPD;
• a reflective statement in your own words that shows you understand the impact on patients, colleagues and public trust;
• evidence that you have applied the learning, such as audits, supervision reports, changed templates or feedback;
• testimonials from colleagues who know about the concern;
• a plan that shows how you will prevent a repeat.

The remediation pathway puts these steps in order. Your medical defence organisation or a solicitor should review anything before it goes to the GMC. If the process is affecting your health, NHS Practitioner Health offers confidential support to doctors.

Healthcare Practise UK is an independent education provider. We are not affiliated with, approved or endorsed by the GMC, NMC, HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC, GCC, Social Work England, MPTS or the PSA. Completing our courses or tools does not decide any regulatory outcome. Regulators decide each case on its own facts, so please take advice from your defence organisation, union or a solicitor before you submit anything to a regulator.