What Is GMC Good Medical Practice? A Guide for IMG Doctors
Updated: 19 hours ago
Good Medical Practice is the single most important document for any doctor working in the UK. It sets out what the General Medical Council (GMC) expects of every registered doctor, and NHS interview panels, appraisers and educational supervisors all refer to it. If you trained outside the UK, understanding it well will help you avoid common first-year problems and answer interview questions with confidence.
Quick answer
Good Medical Practice is the GMC's core standard for all UK doctors. The current version came into effect on 30 January 2024 and is organised into four domains: knowledge, skills and development; patients, partnership and communication; colleagues, culture and safety; and trust and professionalism. It is supported by more detailed GMC guidance on topics such as consent, confidentiality and candour.
What you will learn in our free Understanding Good Medical Practice course
NHS interview panels test your understanding of GMC standards. Know how to answer consent, confidentiality and candour questions the UK way. Our free online Understanding Good Medical Practice course is written for NHS doctors and international medical graduates. You study at your own pace in 4 short modules, with worked examples, interactive exercises and a short quiz at the end. There is no sign-up, and your progress is saved so you can stop and come back.
The 4 modules
The basics: What is the GMC, and what is Good Medical Practice?, The four domains of Good Medical Practice, Good Medical Practice vs 'Good Clinical Practice', How the GMC uses these standards
Patients, partnership and communication: Partnership with patients, Valid consent — the essentials, Mental capacity, Confidentiality — what you can and can't share, Communication, interpreters and fairness
Colleagues, culture and safety: Good record keeping, Safe handover and teamwork, Safe prescribing, Raising concerns about patient safety, When things go wrong — the duty of candour
Trust, professionalism and your development: Honesty and probity, Professional boundaries, Social media and online professionalism, CPD, appraisal and revalidation, Quick practice — what would you do?
By the end of the course you will be able to
Explain what Good Medical Practice is, its four domains, and how the GMC uses it
Apply shared decision-making, valid consent and the Mental Capacity Act in everyday situations
Protect patient confidentiality and know when information can be shared
Act correctly when something goes wrong (duty of candour) and when you have a safety concern
Keep good records, work safely in teams and challenge unacceptable behaviour
Maintain professional boundaries, honesty and online professionalism, and prepare for appraisal and revalidation
Why it helps your NHS application
Real NHS scenarios with suggested approaches, based on the GMC's 2024 Good Medical Practice
Covers the topics IMGs most often find different from home: consent, capacity, candour and raising concerns
A verifiable certificate to show your commitment to UK professional standards
How to write it on your NHS application
In your CV and on NHS Jobs or Trac: list it under "Courses and CPD" (or in the training and courses section of the form), for example:
Understanding Good Medical Practice, online CPD course, CareerPro UK. Certificate of completion, [month and year]; verifiable online, ID CP-XXXXXXXX.
In your supporting statement: show what you learned and how you use it. For example (adapt it so it is true for you):
"I have studied GMC Good Medical Practice in detail, including consent, confidentiality and the professional duty of candour, and I apply its four domains in my day-to-day practice."
At interview: the course also prepares you for questions such as "What would you do if a colleague came to work smelling of alcohol?"
Your certificate of completion
When you pass the quiz, you can download a certificate pack:
A verifiable PDF certificate of completion with your name, the course, your CPD time and a QR code that shortlisters and appraisers can scan
An appraisal-ready reflective note, pre-filled with the course learning outcomes
A ready-to-paste line for your NHS Jobs or Trac application and CV, and a one-click "Add to LinkedIn" button
Studying is free. The certificate pack is a one-off £5, and you pay only after you pass
What Good Medical Practice is and how the GMC uses it
The GMC is the independent regulator for doctors in the UK. It keeps the medical register, sets professional standards, oversees revalidation and acts when a doctor's fitness to practise is in question. Good Medical Practice (often shortened to GMP) is the standard at the centre of that work.
GMP is written as principles, not a rulebook. It does not tell you how to manage a particular condition; that is the job of NICE guidelines, local protocols and your seniors. Instead, it describes the kind of doctor patients and colleagues can trust. It uses "you must" for an overriding duty and "you should" where the GMC explains how to meet that duty or where it will not apply in every situation. If you depart from a "should", you need to be able to explain why.
The GMC uses GMP when it decides whether a doctor's practice has fallen seriously below the expected standard. Your annual appraisal and revalidation are also built around it. For IMGs, this matters because some things that were normal elsewhere, such as giving results to relatives first or deciding on a patient's behalf, may fall short of UK expectations.
Do not confuse it with Good Clinical Practice (GCP), which is training for research.
The four domains of the 2024 version
The 2024 version is organised into four domains:
Knowledge, skills and development. Be competent, keep your knowledge up to date, work within your limits and ask for help when you need it.
Patients, partnership and communication. Treat patients as partners, share decisions, communicate clearly, respect their rights to information and privacy, and treat them fairly.
Colleagues, culture and safety. Work well in teams, keep patients safe, raise concerns, be open when things go wrong, and help create a fair and supportive workplace.
Trust and professionalism. Be honest and trustworthy in your clinical work, your records, your applications and your life outside medicine.
NHS Employers summarised the main areas of change in the 2024 update: respectful, fair and compassionate workplaces; patient-centred care; tackling discrimination; fair and inclusive leadership; and continuity of care and safe delegation. Leadership here does not mean a management title. It applies to every doctor, at every grade, in how they behave and support others.
A simple way to use the domains is to ask four questions about any situation. Am I competent to do this? Am I treating the patient as a partner? Am I working safely and fairly with colleagues? Am I acting with honesty and integrity?
Consent, confidentiality and candour: the basics
Three areas cause IMGs the most difficulty, and each has its own detailed GMC guidance.
Consent. The GMC's guidance on decision making and consent is built on seven principles. Patients have a right to be involved in decisions about their care, and decision making should be an ongoing two-way conversation. You should find out what matters to each patient and explain the benefits and harms of the reasonable options, including taking no action. Adults are presumed to have capacity, and capacity is assessed for a specific decision at a specific time. Consent is a conversation, not a signature.
Confidentiality. The GMC's confidentiality guidance explains that relevant information can be shared for a patient's direct care unless they object. Beyond direct care, you generally need explicit consent, unless the disclosure is required by law or can be justified in the public interest, for example to protect others from serious harm. If you share, share only what is necessary, with the right person, and record what you shared and why.
Candour. The joint GMC and NMC guidance on the professional duty of candour says that when something goes wrong, you should speak to the patient as soon as possible, explain what happened and its likely effects, and offer a sincere apology. You should also make sure they have support and know who to contact, record the apology in the notes, and report the incident through your organisation's system so others can learn.
Our free Understanding Good Medical Practice course works through these areas with realistic NHS scenarios and model answers, alongside capacity, record keeping, raising concerns, boundaries and social media.
How NHS interview panels test Good Medical Practice
Panels rarely ask you to recite GMP. They test it through scenario and ethics questions. Common types include:
Consent and capacity: "A patient refuses a treatment you think they need. What do you do?"
Confidentiality: "A patient's son phones the ward asking for his father's results."
Candour: "You realise you prescribed the wrong dose of a drug. What happens next?"
Raising concerns: "You suspect a colleague has been drinking before a shift."
Probity: "You notice a colleague has exaggerated their experience on an application."
Team culture: "A senior colleague speaks rudely to a nurse in front of patients."
Working within competence: "You are asked to do a procedure you have not been trained to do."
A reliable structure for answering is:
Patient safety first. Address any immediate risk.
Gather information. Do not assume the worst.
Act within your competence, following GMC guidance and local policy.
Escalate to a senior or the right person.
Document what happened and what you did.
Reflect and learn, and support others where needed.
For example, if asked about a relative who wants you to withhold a cancer diagnosis, a strong answer explains that you would listen privately to the relative's worries, but that the patient has a right to information about their own health. You would then ask the patient how much they want to know, involve your consultant, offer support from the specialist nurse and document the conversations. Mentioning the relevant domain or guidance by name shows the panel that you understand the framework behind your answer.
Showing GMP on your NHS application
Most NHS person specifications refer to professional values, communication, teamwork and probity, which map directly onto the four domains. Our guide to the NHS person specification explains how shortlisters score these criteria.
In your supporting statement, give brief real examples rather than general claims. For example: "I used a professional interpreter for a consent discussion with a patient who spoke little English, checked her understanding with teach-back and documented the conversation." That single sentence shows partnership, communication and good record keeping. Our guide to writing an NHS supporting statement shows how to build examples like this.
Above all, be accurate. Honesty in applications is part of the trust and professionalism domain. Exaggerating your experience, grades or roles is a probity issue, not just poor presentation.
Start the free course
The free Understanding Good Medical Practice course is split into short modules covering the four domains, shared decision-making, consent and capacity, confidentiality, candour, raising concerns, record keeping, professional boundaries, social media, and appraisal and revalidation. It is free to study, ends with a quiz, and offers an optional verifiable certificate and a reflective note for your appraisal. It is an independent study guide, so always read the GMC's own guidance for the official wording. If you would like your NHS application reviewed and rewritten (£35), email cvreviewexperts@gmail.com.
Frequently asked questions
When did the current Good Medical Practice come into effect?
The current version of Good Medical Practice came into effect on 30 January 2024. It replaced the 2013 edition and is organised into four domains.
What are the four domains of Good Medical Practice?
The four domains are knowledge, skills and development; patients, partnership and communication; colleagues, culture and safety; and trust and professionalism.
Is Good Medical Practice the same as Good Clinical Practice?
No. Good Medical Practice is the GMC's professional standard for all UK doctors. Good Clinical Practice is a quality standard and training for people involved in clinical research.
Do NHS interviews ask about Good Medical Practice directly?
Sometimes, but more often panels test it through scenario questions on consent, confidentiality, candour, raising concerns and probity. A structured answer that puts patient safety first and shows honesty, escalation and documentation demonstrates that you understand it.
What does the duty of candour mean for a doctor?
It means being open and honest with patients when something goes wrong with their care. You should tell them promptly, explain what happened and its likely effects, apologise and make sure they have support, and report the incident so others can learn.
Related guide: When can a doctor share patient information in the UK?
Related guide: How to write a reflection for appraisal and revalidation
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