The General Medical Council (the GMC) is the regulator of the medical profession in the United Kingdom.
Their purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the community by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine. The council was formed in 1858 and following recent legislation are implementing a comprehensive and wide-ranging reform of the organisation and its role. This is a result of considerable social change, but also highly publicised scandal cases such as the Shipman affair.
One of the recent changes is the shift of emphasis from simple registration to revalidation of doctors, in which the professional is expected to prove his or her professional development and skills. The revalidation process will occur once every five years for every doctor, and was expected to start in 2004, although it is being delayed by the publication and implementation of the Shipman Inquiry Report.
The GMC also administers the Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board test, which has to be sat by non-European Union overseas doctors before they may practice medicine in the UK.
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