From yesterday doctors who wanted to practise medicine in the UK had to be both registered with the GMC and have a licence to practise.
A licence to practise gives a UK doctor the legal authority to write prescriptions, sign death certificates and exercise a wide range of other legal 'privileges'. This applies to all doctors working in the UK, whether working in the NHS or the independent sector, either on a permanent or locum basis.
You can contact the GMC with licensing queries at licensing@gmc-uk.org.
Professor Peter Rubin, GMC chairman, said: ‘The successful start to licensing is a major milestone towards the introduction of revalidation, a new process by which doctors will have to regularly demonstrate to the GMC that they remain up to date and fit to practise in the job that they do.'
