ABSTRACT
For doctors in the UK, the General Medical Council (GMC) has been the regulatory body since its establishment in 1858, setting the educational requirements for entry onto the Medical Registrar and the professional standards expected of doctors once they are on it. In February 1999, the Council resolved that continued registration should be linked with regular active demonstration by all registered doctors that they remained fit to practice and up to date in their chosen field. There is, however, no evidence that periodic re-certification of credentials by some form of examination bears any relation to clinical performance, so the GMC has decided to adopt a performance-based system, which has become known as revalidation. In a parallel development, the Government, in its June 1998 publication A First Class Service - Quality in the New NHS, outlined its plans to introduce a system of clinical governance, a process by which each part of the NHS provides quality assurance for its clinical decisions.
