Doctors face annual skills check-ups

DOCTORS would undergo annual appraisals under proposed plans to overhaul regulation

of an estimated 218,000 UK practitioners.

Under the revalidation scheme, licences will be issued by the General Medical Council (GMC) every five years, based on appraisals of doctors' skills and knowledge.

The GMC has insisted that the scheme will be phased in over five years from 2011, with pilot schemes already under way.

Niall Dickson, GMC chief executive, said: "This represents the biggest change in medical regulations for 150 years."

The scheme has been drawn up in response to a series of medical scandals, including the Harold Shipman affair.

Health secretary Andy Burnham earlier this year compared doctors, who are not formally checked "from the point of entering practice to the day they retire", with airline pilots who faced 100 assessments over their careers.

A poll of more than 1,000 consultants and GPs carried out last May found one in six said revalidation was causing them to consider a change in career.