The General Medical Council (GMC): what private GPs need to know

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the UK-wide regulator of doctors. It keeps the medical register, sets the standards in Good medical practice, revalidates licensed doctors and acts on serious concerns. Working privately changes none of that: a private GP needs the same full registration with a licence to practise as an NHS GP, revalidates on the same terms, and needs a connection to a designated body or suitable person. That last point is the one that most often catches out GPs leaving the NHS.

What is the General Medical Council?

The GMC's statutory purpose is set by the Medical Act 1983. For doctors, its work falls into four main areas, alongside approving medical education and training:

• Registers. It keeps the official list of registered doctors (and physician associates and anaesthesia associates), and checks that applicants meet its requirements.
• Standards. It sets the values, knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of every doctor, mainly through Good medical practice and its more detailed guidance.
• Revalidation. It decides whether licensed doctors stay up to date and fit to practise, based on annual appraisal and a recommendation, usually every five years.
• Concerns. It investigates serious concerns about a doctor's behaviour, health or performance. It can refer cases to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), whose tribunals can suspend, restrict or remove a doctor.

The GMC regulates you as an individual doctor. It does not register or inspect your service. That is the job of the service regulator in your nation: the CQC in England, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW), Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and the RQIA in Northern Ireland. In Wales, for example, HIW registers independent clinics and independent medical agencies where private-only medical services are provided regularly by GMC-registered doctors. See whether you need CQC registration.

GMC registration for private GPs

There is no separate GMC category for private GPs. What you need depends on your work.

Requirement	What the rule says	What it means for a private GP
Full registration with a licence to practise	The licence is what allows a doctor to prescribe and treat patients in the UK. Doctors registered without a licence should not practise medicine in the UK.	Essential for any private clinical work, including remote consultations with UK patients.
The GP Register	Since 1 April 2006, every doctor working as a GP in the UK health service must be on the GP Register (doctors in training excepted). This includes locums.	The GMC frames this as a health service requirement. If your work is purely private, check what your indemnity provider, your service regulator and any clinic you work for expect. Most private GPs keep their GP registration.
A performers list	Needed to work as a GP in NHS general practice.	Not needed for purely private work. If you keep NHS sessions, it usually decides your designated body.
Indemnity	Section 44C of the Medical Act 1983 requires every licensed doctor who practises to have an indemnity arrangement with appropriate cover for the nature and extent of the risks.	Make sure your cover reflects your private work. See indemnity for private GPs.
Connection details	You must tell the GMC, through GMC Online, who your designated body and responsible officer (or suitable person) are, or that you have none, and update it straight away when it changes.	Leaving the NHS almost always changes your connection, so update it at the same time.

How much does GMC registration cost?

The GMC charges an annual fee. The rates from 1 April 2026 are:

Annual fee	From 1 April 2026
Registration with a licence to practise	£481
Registration without a licence to practise	£172
With a licence, fixed-term discount for recently qualified doctors	£184

There is a 50% discount if your worldwide income is under the income threshold, which is £38,500 from 1 April 2026. Check the GMC's discount rules before applying. Fees usually change each April.

Revalidation has its own costs if you leave the NHS. A designated body for independent doctors will usually charge for appraisal and revalidation support; the Independent Doctors Federation, for example, charges a £115 non-refundable application fee plus an annual fee.

GMC revalidation requirements

Revalidation is a legal obligation for every licensed doctor. You will usually revalidate once every five years. The GMC's guidance says you must:

• identify your designated body and responsible officer, or suitable person, and keep your connection up to date in GMC Online
• collect supporting information from the whole of your UK practice
• have an annual appraisal covering your whole scope of practice, based on Good medical practice
• reflect on your supporting information and discuss it with your appraiser
• make sure your responsible officer or suitable person can make a recommendation about you
• send the GMC any information it asks for

The GMC is clear that a doctor not sufficiently engaging with revalidation is putting their licence to practise at risk.

The six types of supporting information

1. Continuing professional development (CPD)
2. Quality improvement activity
3. Significant events
4. Feedback from patients
5. Feedback from colleagues
6. Compliments and complaints

At least once in each revalidation cycle you must run a formal patient feedback exercise and collect colleague feedback, with colleagues drawn from across your whole scope of practice and from a range of roles. Your portfolio also needs a description of your scope of practice, where you have worked, and probity and health statements. The probity statement covers your legal duty to hold adequate indemnity and to declare and manage conflicts of interest.

"Whole practice" matters for private GPs. If you do NHS sessions and private clinics, both go into the same appraisal. A solo private service has no ready-made significant event log, complaints process or patient survey, so build these in from day one. There is more on the practicalities in appraisal and revalidation as a private GP.

Finding a designated body as a private GP

Your designated body is the organisation whose responsible officer makes your revalidation recommendation. Regulation 10 of the Medical Profession (Responsible Officers) Regulations 2010 sets the connection in a fixed order. You cannot choose your designated body, and a designated body cannot choose whether to accept you. In simplified form, outside training:

1. If you are on a medical performers list in England, Wales or Scotland, the body that holds that list.
2. Otherwise, a designated body that employs you.
3. If you work through a locum agency that is a designated body, that agency.
4. If you have practising privileges at a hospital owned or managed by a designated body, that body.
5. Otherwise, the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Public Health or Pharmaceutical Medicine, if you are a member.
6. Otherwise, the Independent Doctors Federation, if you are a member.

In practice, a GP who keeps even some NHS work usually stays connected through the performers list. GPs who leave the NHS completely often connect through practising privileges, a private employer or the Independent Doctors Federation. To connect to the Federation you need a licence, some licensed work in the independent sector, and confirmation from the GMC's connection tool that it is the right designated body for you. See what the IDF is. Northern Ireland has its own responsible officer regulations, so doctors there should check with the GMC's connection tool.

Suitable person

If you have no designated body, you may be able to use a suitable person: a licensed doctor the GMC has approved to make your revalidation recommendation. Typically this is someone with responsible officer-type duties, such as the medical director of a membership body for doctors doing your type of work. They must have enough oversight of where you work to assess your fitness to practise, and the GMC must approve them first.

No connection at all

If you have neither, you tell the GMC in GMC Online and meet extra requirements. You find an appraiser who meets the GMC's criteria, submit an annual return (with at least three months' notice of the due date) covering your practice history, registration history, fitness to practise and health declarations and appraisals, and sit a revalidation assessment. That assessment is a 120-question multiple choice test, usually taken in the year you are due to revalidate, which you book and pay for within the GMC's timeframe. It is the most demanding route, so try to secure a connection before you leave the NHS.

Good medical practice and private work

The current Good medical practice came into effect for doctors on 30 January 2024. It applies across all sectors, private included. The GMC describes the standards as a framework to apply with judgement, not a set of rules.

The parts that come up most often in private general practice are:

• making sure information you give as a doctor, including your advertising and website, is accurate and not misleading
• declaring and managing conflicts of interest, such as financial interests in tests or products you recommend
• continuity of care and sharing information with the patient's NHS GP

A GMC checklist for private GPs

• Check your register entry: full registration, licence to practise and GP Register status are correct.
• Update your connection in GMC Online the moment your designated body changes.
• Pay the annual fee, and check whether the income discount applies.
• Book an annual appraisal that covers all your NHS and private work.
• Plan patient and colleague feedback exercises early in each revalidation cycle.
• Confirm your indemnity covers your private scope of practice.
• If you engage other doctors, check their register entry before they start: the GMC says providers must make sure their doctors hold the right registration for their role.