The 'multiplication factor' remains, doubling the points a GP can earn if he or she can show how learning has improved practice.

But the RCGP's revalidation lead Professor Mike Pringle said that limits on the percentage of online learning would be simplified.

The word 'evidence' is also being dropped, with GPs now expected to supply 'supporting information' for revalidation.

The changes will appear in the third revision of the RCGP's revalidation document, due out in January.

FAQs on revalidation, now on the college's website, crystallise information about revalidation, due to start roll-out in the second quarter of 2011.

Uncertainties remain over the cost of multi-source feedback and who will shoulder the cost.

'The RCGP is working closely with others ... to ensure that the costs of revalidation do not largely fall upon individual GPs,' the FAQs say.

Funds to pay for remediating doctors who fail revalidation will be needed, the RCGP says.

Otherwise GPs could face paying five-figure sums to remediate or leave the profession (GP, 26 November).