The GMC said it elected to freeze all registration fees for 2017/18 to help doctors cope with ‘one of the toughest financial situations on record’.
Its annual retention fee will remain at £425, while the fee for medical school graduates to become provisionally registered will be kept at £90. A doctor’s first year of full registration will still be £200.
Fees increased by £5 from 2015/16 to this year, which was preceded by a £30 increase the year before.
The announcement follows a period of upheaval for the GMC, which saw it relocate around 130 of its posts from London to Manchester – a move which is projected to save the regulator £6m a year by 2018.
GP funding
GMC chief executive Charlie Massey said: ‘Health services across the UK and the professionals working within them are dealing with one of the toughest financial situations on record. Against this challenging backdrop it’s essential that we keep our registration fees for doctors as low as possible.
‘The measures that we have taken this year mean that we can freeze our registration fees in 2017. I am determined that the GMC will continue to exercise discipline in the way that it manages the income from its fees, stretching them as far as they will go to make sure the organisation remains in strong financial health while continuing to improve our services for doctors and patients.
‘Next year we will continue to strengthen our professional support for doctors as well as streamline our fitness to practise procedures to help us avoid carrying out full investigations wherever possible.’
A GPonline survey last month found that GP practices serving 5m patients could be forced to close over the coming year because of funding problems.
