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Revalidation guidance

Guidance on revalidation

This section contains the general advice on revalidation.

Preparing for revalidation

To prepare for revalidation to the General Medical Council (GMC), doctors should:

  • Set up a GMC online account
  • Identify your responsible officer (RO) through your GMC online account
  • Take part in regular appraisal, as provided under the supervision of your RO who will clarify what format of appraisal is acceptable locally, for example, whether you should use the Revalidation Support Team's model appraisal form. Your appraisal should:
           -  Cover the full scope of your professional practice
           -  Be based on the GMC’s Good Public Health Practice  for appraisal and revalidation
           -  Include information about your practice, as set out by the GMC: supporting information for appraisal and revalidation. This should include previous appraisal summaries, CPD records, quality improvement (e.g. audit outcomes), significant events, patient and colleague feedback and complaints/compliments
  • Through your RO, establish what the local arrangements are for the collection of patient and colleague feedback. GMC advice on this can be found on the GMC website
  • Familiarise yourself with the specialty guidance produced by the Faculty of Public Health (FPH).
Public Health Specialty Guidance

As part of the Academy of Medical Royal College's work on producing comprehensive and comparative guidance for all specialties for collecting evidence for revalidation, FPH has produced a document outlining the requirements for public health specialists.

The aim is for all specialties to share the basic GMC framework, with addendums for individual specialist areas where required. Our members have been consulted on this living document.

If you think improvements can be made to this document, please contact

FPH Revalidation Booklet
Revalidation and Public Health leaflet cover

FPH has produced a booklet for members and the wider public health community on Revalidation and Public Health. This booklet contains vital information for all public health professionals on the impact of revalidation, including the complete specialist standards for public health, clarification on supporting information and updates on appraisal, CPD, MSF, audit and e-portfolio. Please note that this guidance will be updated shortly.







Good Public Health Practice

The principles in this document describe public health professionalism in action. Good Public Health Practice  should complement the GMC’s guidance on revalidation.

Any member may submit additional feedback to

Further information on legislation

The following pieces of legislation are pivotal in informing and shaping GMC revalidation in the UK: