Interesting(?!) day.
Revalidation came through (postponed from April because of Covid). Obviously the slight downside of that is I have to keep being a doctor for the next 5 years, oh well 
2nd after 2 ½ weeks and multiple new bits of suspension the BMW dealer has fixed the “clunk” that my car was making on changes of velocity but have done this ↓ to my car. They have promised to make it all better before I get it back but I’m not super impressed.
Jeeze that’s bad
Careless, at any rate.
Surprised your revalidation was postponed…my sister retired a year or so back and hung up her spurs. To her horror a letter from BMA landed on her doormat early this year saying she had been re-registered and her details forwarded to NHS so she could take on work as a doctor again.
Oh no I won’t said she, please de-register me pdq. And if they want an elderly doc who hadn’t done a clinical session for several years I would have thought been keen to keep you registered…
Wouldn’t be the BMA - registration, licences to practice and revalidation are handled by the GMC and I can’t see them doing it spontaneously. For one thing it needs a face-to-face interview to check ID and qualifications (assuming you don’t hold a current licence to practice) and for another it involves handing £££’s over.
Even with the government’s enthusiasm for getting the recently retired back on the front line to help with Covid the GMC will want its pound of flesh.
There is a 5 year revalidation exercise to retain a licence to practice. Mostly box ticking and anyone who’s revalidation fell between mid March 2020 and mid March 2021 was automatically deferred for a year - but they changed recently to allow your employer to forward recommendations before the full year was up.
Don’t worry about that Guv.
That’ll polish out. Good as new!
Yes, it was GMC, I forgot who she said. “I can’t see them doing it spontaneous” - excuse me, but please don’t imply that I am lying.
“The GMC has granted temporary registration to additional doctors under its emergency powers, so that they are able to help with the coronavirus pandemic. This includes:
You will be advised that you have been added to the medical register. You will also be given an option to opt out if you do not wish to be on the register.”
I wasn’t, and the distinction between the BMA (trade association) and GMC (regulatory body) is perhaps not that clear to a non-medic.
I didn’t pay close attention to what the GMC were doing for recently retired doctors as it does not apply to my situation, I had assumed that it was “easy access to re-registration and re-acquiring a licence” rather than en-bloc putting people back on the register whether they liked it or not. In fact I am surprised that they took that approach - perhaps they thought it would be less admin to do everyone and take the ones off that didn’t want to be on the register rather than the other way round.
Note that simply being registered is not sufficient to work as a doctor - you also need to hold a “licence to practice” and, of course even being registered with a licence to practice does not mean that a retired doctor would have to return to work.
I retired 3 years ago ( immediately moving to our house in France) and GMC insisted I continue paying for registration as I hadn’t obtained a certificate of ´good standing’ from my previous NHS Trust employers. Despite having insisting repeatedly that I was retired, not working in any medical capacity and not even in the UK they insisted each year sending me a bill for registration plus a demand for arrears. I am quite relieved to have appraisal and 5 yr revalidation ( the extremest example of a box ticking exercise I have experience of) behind me.
I guess that they eventually got the message
They used to take you off pretty quickly - when I started my Comp Sci degree I was going to get myself off the register properly but one thing lead to another and I forgot until the letter landed informing me I had been taken off the “principal list” as it was back then (1988).
I guess that would have been an end to it had I not decided I wanted back in 15 years later - at which point they had the last laugh and charged me an extra year’s registration as I had not exited “tidily”.
I had a further brief period off the register when I wasn’t working around 2012 - I did do that one “tidily” but didn’t exactly save any money as, by the time I wanted to restore myself to the register, they wanted face to face ID checks and other faffing - in the end I almost wished I’d just coughed up the yearly retention fee.
They’ll get you either way Paul.
