Your designated body and RO
Your designated body is the organisation responsible for providing you with an appraiser and supporting you with revalidation. The GMC website can help you locate your designated body and Responsible Officer (RO) (external PDF).
You check the information about your revalidation held on your GMC online account which includes the date of your last revalidation, your designated body, your RO and your next submission date.
If you are providing undifferentiated NHS general practice under a GMS/PMS contract you will connect to an NHS primary care designated body and receive a GP appraisal via your designated body. If you are a freelance sessional GP providing locum sessions to an NHS GP practice you are responsible for ensuring your status as a locum is correct, use the region where you provide the majority of your locum sessions. In England you can do this on PCSE online.
As Northern Ireland operates as a single region, there is one RO and one performers list for all GPs working there, GPs practising in Northern Ireland must alert the revalidation team at the Department of Health’s online portal, SPPG, if they’re not able to have an appraisal in a calendar year. This could result in removal from the performers list.
Scotland holds a National Performers list. However if you move between health boards please contact the local Primary Care Directorate so they can include you on their appraisal list and reallocate you to the RO for the territorial health board you will now be practising in.
In Wales the Revalidation Support Unit (RSU) manages the GP appraisal process on behalf of health boards. Every eligible GP in Wales has a prescribed connection to a Responsible Officer via the dedicated MARS online appraisal system.
If you’ve moved to a different region, it is likely your designated body will have changed and it is a good idea to check it has been updated on GMC online. This is also the most reliable way for you to check when your next revalidation recommendation is due.
If your role requires a licence to practise but you are not on the GP performers list and are not provided with an appraisal and a prescribed connection to an RO, you should use the GMC guidance to find your connection for revalidation. You will need an annual appraisal and there are accredited providers of annual medical appraisal who charge a fee for their service.
Your appraiser
If you are registered on a national performers list, your appraiser will be allocated by the regional office where you are registered as a performer. You can expect to be informed of your appraiser by email by your regional office. You can generally expect to have the same appraiser in England for three years, although you can request a fourth year if you have a good reason why continuity would be beneficial or veto an appraiser who has not provided an appraisal that is valuable to you. If you have not received an email with the details for your appraiser four months before your appraisal month or you do not know when you are due and appraisal you can contact your regional appraisal office.
In Scotland you can expect to have the same appraiser for 4 or 5 years.
In Wales, a GP may choose the same appraiser twice in every five-year cycle.
GPs in Northern Ireland can request the same appraiser for three consecutive years, though this continuity cannot be guaranteed. Appraisees make an annual application for an appraiser, nominating up to five potential appraisers.
When your appraisal will take place
You can expect your appraisal month to be the same month each year unless you have been on extended leave. The regional GP appraisal office can change months to facilitate a suitable period before a revalidation date but do not control your revalidation date which you can check for accuracy on GMC online.
Your appraiser should support you to think about what you need for your appraisal and help you avoid spending time collecting unnecessary information. During your appraisal discussion, they should help you to verbalise your reflection on your roles and bring out evidence that you are continuing to work in line with GMP. You need to reflect on supporting information relevant to the whole scope of your work.
If you are no longer on a national performers list as a GP
Increasingly, GPs are working exclusively in roles that require GP skills but would not be eligible to remain on the national performers list. This includes, for example, GPs employed in hospitals who are not providing general practice under a GMS/PMS contract. In such circumstances, your primary care RO may feel that you should be subject to your employer’s governance structure, and that your employer should provide your appraisal, and that you should have a different RO. We advise that doctors are aligned to the Trust that employs them and the RO for that Trust as this would provide better governance for assurance.
If you are transitioning from providing NHS general practice in the community to other roles you should discuss when you last did a session of undifferentiated general practice with your appraiser. If you have done fewer than forty sessions of NHS general practice (or NHS GP out-of-hours) in the 12 months prior to your appraisal, we recommend you complete an Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) Factors for Consideration template (external PDF) and upload this to your appraisal portfolio.
In England, you are likely to have two years’ grace before removal from the performers list, however this differs between regions and nations.
In Wales, the performers list is reviewed annually with any GP not undertaking any clinical practice in the preceding twelve months potentially being removed. This is considered on a case-by-case basis, though it is worth noting that urgent care centre work is not being considered GMS work for the purposes of the performers list.
We recommend you check with your revalidation office and ask for a conversation about how you are staying up to date and this will help the responsible officer’s team to decide whether and how long you can remain on the performers list. It may be easier to return to the performers list if you voluntarily removed yourself. To do this go to “How do I remove myself from the performer list”.