The GMC is changing how doctors demonstrate the standard required for GP registration in order to make it more flexible and ‘less burdensome’.
From the end of November this year, the Certificate of Eligibility for General Practice Registration (CEGPR), along with its equivalent for other specialties, will be renamed the ‘Portfolio pathway’.
The new standard will no longer require equivalence with the CCT but will instead require applicants to demonstrate that they have the ‘knowledge, skills and experience required for practising as an eligible specialist or GP in the UK’.
These changes aim to better recognise the ‘often extensive experience’ doctors may have gained doing training outside the UK or outside formal UK training posts, according to the GMC.
The regulator confirmed yesterday that the changes to its legislation had been approved by parliament and will come into effect on 30 November.
An update from the GMC said: ‘This important change will give us more flexibility to accept a broader range of evidence from applicants.
‘It will also make the application process less burdensome as the volume of evidence doctors need to provide will be more proportionate.’
The regulator added: ‘The prescriptive and inflexible nature of the legislation means that applications for specialist and GP registration are overly bureaucratic, complex to navigate, and burdensome to satisfy.’
On the upcoming reform, the GMC said: ‘This change does not represent a lower standard or lowered expectations of applicants. Instead, it will introduce a consistent, minimum, safe standard across all pathways to specialist and GP registration both now and in the future.
‘Applicants will need to demonstrate that their knowledge, skills and experience align to the high-level learning outcomes of the GMC-approved UK curriculum in the relevant specialty or in general practice, rather than mapping their evidence to the relevant detailed CCT curriculum.’
The GMC has also said it is working with the royal colleges to update specific guidance on what this means for each specialty, which will be published when available.
The colleges have been specifically asked to focus on building in more flexibility around: time limits for evidence; structured reports; using evidence collected for revalidation; and using evidence from formal UK education and training progression.
Wider reform of GMC legislation is also underway, with physician and anaesthesia associates being brought under regulation and planned changes to GMC processes including swifter resolution of FTP investigations.
A version of this story first appeared on our sister publication Pulse.
