What is the purpose of revalidation?
The purpose of revalidation of a Doctor's Licence to Practice is to give patients greater confidence in the profession and support the individual in maintaining and improving their practice.

What is a Responsible Officer?
This is a senior clinician in a Designated Body who ensures that the doctors for whom they act in this nominated capacity, continue to practice safely and are properly supported and managed in maintaining their professional standards.

What is a Designated Body?
This is the organisation that a licenced doctor has a professional, educational or employment connection with that provides them with support for revalidation. For postgraduate trainees in Scotland, this is NHS Education for Scotland, through your local postgraduate deanery. For most other doctors, it is the health board in which they work.

Who is my Responsible Officer?
Your Responsible Officer (RO), as a postgraduate trainee in Scotland, is Prof Emma Watson, Executive Medical Director for NES. However, your immediate contact will be the Lead Dean Director who is responsible for your training programme.

How will the GMC know who my "Designated Body" is?
Your designated body is NHS Education for Scotland, through your Deanery, & you will have to have a GMC Online account set up in order to have communication with them - you should already have this if you have participated in the National Training Survey, but if you don't, you must set this up (https://webcache.gmc-uk.org/ecustomer_enu/index.aspx)

How can I find out further information?
The GMC have information on their website which can be found at http://www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/revalidation/12383.asp

What do I need to do for this process?
You will already produce much or all of the evidence required for revalidation as a matter of course during your training, through meeting the requirements of your curriculum and periodic discussions with your educational supervisor. All Scottish based trainees will have to complete a declaration through a web based system called SOAR, which will also be used by all trained doctors in Scotland for appraisal and revalidation purposes.
You will have to make a declaration in this system that outlines any
• Complaints
• Significant incidents or
• Health issues
that could interfere with your practice. This will be verified by your educational supervisor or training programme director, as such issues already are.
If you have been involved in a Serious Untoward Incident (see GMC definition Q8) or for GPST a patient safety incident( PSI), whether investigated or not, you should have discussed it with your educational supervisor and reflected on the outcome in your portfolio as part of the normal education appraisal process. Your educational supervisor will be asked to comment on the event as part of the SOAR declaration process.

Complaints
If you know you have been involved in a formal written complaint you should have discussed it with your educational supervisor and reflected on the outcome in your portfolio as part of the normal educational appraisal process. As long as there are no fitness to practice issues outstanding, this shouldn't affect revalidation or progression through a programme in any way.
If there are unresolved concerns, this will be dealt with separately through the normal training structures

In relation to completing this statement, what is a significant event?
The GMC state that a significant event (also known as an untoward or critical incident) is any unintended or unexpected event, which could or did lead to harm to one or more patients. This includes incidents which did not cause harm but could have done, or where the event should have been prevented, which is significant enough to be investigated by your employing organisation.
It is an expectation that all doctors as part of the requirements for revalidation are required to record and reflect on significant events in their work with the focus on what they have learnt as a result of the event/s. You only need to record this information on the self-declaration in SOAR if any formal investigations have not been completed and resolved, or if they have not been included in your portfolio.
For general practice trainees you will be expected to declare any Patient Safety Incidents. A PSI is defined as any unintended or unexpected incident which could have or did lead to harm for one or more patients receiving NHS care and which has resulted in a practice based SEA and has been recorded in the trainee e-portfolio as a PSI.

When will I revalidate?
The GMC has indicated that your revalidation date will be set to your expected CCT date or to 5 years after revalidation commences (expected to be December 2012). Whichever date is the earliest for you, put that date on your form.
All trainees who revalidate at 5 years, will revalidate again at CCT. For trainees who gain full registration with a licence to practise after December 2012, your revalidation date will be set to 5 years after full registration (or to your expected CCT date where this comes first).
The first trainees to revalidate will be those who revalidate at the time they attain their CCT. For those trainees revalidation will be informed by their ARCP history but these trainees will also need, at that time, to complete a self-declaration regarding complaints/incidents/health (see Q7) using their SOAR account.

Where can I find the GMC programme approval number and/or Deanery Reference Number/National Training Number?
This information is completed by the Deanery. For the GMC survey this information will be provided to you through the survey from the information provided by the Deanery direct to the GMC

How will I know if I have been recommended or not for revalidation?
The recommendation for revalidation to the GMC will occur every 5 years, and again at CCT, or at the point of CCT where this comes first. An ARCP will be held every year and if there are ever any concerns that might affect a trainee's possible revalidation these will be discussed face-to-face and recorded in the ARCP outcome form. The outcomes of ARCP panels are always passed to the trainee and their employer. Your employer already supplies information to the Deanery to inform the revalidation process through your ARCP.
You will receive a formal notification of your revalidation decision from the GMC.

How is my grace period accounted for?
The Lead Dean Director/NES Medical Director will remain the Responsible Officer until the end of the period of grace.

Who is the Postgraduate Dean/Medical Director responsible for?
• The Lead Dean Director (on behalf of the medical director) is only responsible for Trainees in GMC approved Deanery training programmes and posts. This will include LATs and trainees who are currently out of programme.
• The Lead Dean Director is NOT responsible for any locums including LASs, Trust grade jobs, staff grade posts and other non-training grade posts.

If I get an outcome other than a 1 in my ARCP does that mean I will not get revalidation?
Not at all. It is quite possible to get an outcome 3 or 4 for failure to pass key exams, but unless there are other problems (e.g. conduct or health) it would have no effect on your revalidation decision.

What happens if I am absent for a period of time or have a break from my training programme; what effect will this have on my revalidation?
If you are absent or take a break from the training programme which is approved by the deanery (meaning that you do not give up your training number), then your revalidation date and prescribed connection will remain the same, and you do not need to do anything else. This might include taking up an out of programme training or research post, or going on maternity or long term sick leave. If your revalidation date happens to fall whilst you are out of training, your Responsible Officer will have the option to defer your revalidation. Deferral of the revalidation recommendation does not have any impact on your licence to practice, and is not a detrimental judgement.

In Summary, what do I need to do between now & March 2013?
1. Set up GMC online account (after Dec 2012 this will confirm your designated body and revalidation submission date).
2. Log into your SOAR account when your deanery contacts you to do this (around March 2013) - this is the online system to support appraisal of all TRAINED doctors in Scotland - but will also be the mechanism for you to submit an annual declaration regarding any complaints/significant incidents or health issues that might have implications for your practice. This will be verified by your educational supervisor or training programme director and will feed into ARCP and to revalidation.
The evidence required for revalidation is the same evidence of engagement with training and of attainment of competencies that informs your ARCP each year combined with the annual declaration regarding complaints/incidents/health.

Who can I contact if I have other questions?

If you have any other queries please send them to our Revalidation inbox: revalidation.enquiries@nes.scot.nhs.uk

How does revalidation work for new consultants?

For newly qualified consultants, this recorded webinar on YouTube from GMC explains how revalidation works.

This page was last updated on: 12.04.2023 at 12.48