| Useful Information for Doctors |
In order to practice in the UK, a doctor must be registered with the General Medical Council (GMC). To work as a consultant in the NHS you must also be included in the GMC's Specialist Register. Procedure for registration varies according to where you qualified as a doctor and where you obtained your primary and specialist qualification.
Applications for both registration and specialist registration can be made at the same time.
You are eligible for full registration with the GMC without further testing if your medical qualification is from a university:
- in the UK
- elsewhere within the EEA (European Economic Area), and you are also an EEA national or the spouse of an EEA national (the EEA includes EU member states and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein or from specified universities recognised by the GMC for full registration in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia (if your primary qualification was pre-1990), South Africa and West Indies.
If you have completed specialist training and hold specialist qualifications awarded outside the EEA, then you will need to apply to the GMC for full registration, and you will also need to apply to the Specialist Training Authority (STA) for inclusion in the Specialist Register. You will have to satisfy the STA that your qualification is equivalent to a UK Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) in that specialty. If you are eligible for specialist registration, you will be exempt from the GMC's Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) test.
If you are an EEA national or the spouse of an EEA national, and hold both a recognized primary qualification and a recognized specialist medical qualification granted in an EEA State, you are also eligible for inclusion in the Specialist Register. Your specialty must be a recognized UK specialty. The GMC may need additional information from you if the training leading to the award of your EEA specialist qualification was not carried out in the EEA state which issued that qualification. You can apply direct to the GMC for full registration and for specialist registration at the same time.
To be considered for appointment as an NHS International Fellow you need to have fluent command of the English language. This will be assessed both at interview and through your score in the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS) test. Doctors who hold primary medical qualifications awarded outside the EEA or who are not an EEA national, or the spouse of an EEA national, need to achieve a satisfactory score in the British Council's International English Language Testing Service (IELTS) test before they are eligible for registration. You will need to achieve a score of 7.0 in each of the academic sections of the IELTS. EEA nationals and their spouses with recognized qualifications do not need to take a language test in order to be registered by the GMC. However, in order to join the Fellowship, these doctors will also be required to achieve an average score of 7.0 in the academic sections of the IELTS test and a minimum of 6.0 in each section.
