Appraisers do not have the authority to make a decision about your revalidation recommendation. Their role is to facilitate your reflection, support and stimulate your development and help you present an appropriate portfolio of supporting information for your responsible officer (RO) to consider.

1. Will the appraiser decide about my
revalidation recommendation?
This Blog clears the commonly held misconception that appraisers decide the revalidation
recommendation for doctors.
Appraisers do not have the authority to make a decision about your revalidation
recommendation. Their role is to facilitate your reflection, support and stimulate your
development and help you present an appropriate portfolio of supporting information for your
responsible officer (RO) to consider. Part of their role is to provide a comprehensive summary of
the evidence supplied to represent you to the RO and show that you are complying with the
requirements for revalidation.
Your Responsible Officer (RO) has the statutory responsibility for making a revalidation
recommendation to the GMC. Their decision is based on their determination about whether
you have sufficiently engaged in annual appraisal, provided a portfolio of supporting
information that meets the GMC requirements, and whether there are any outstanding
concerns for any part of your scope of work.
The GMC will make the revalidation decision about whether to continue your licence to
practise. Supporting you to produce an appropriate portfolio that covers the full scope of your
practice includes helping you to plan your professional development in such a way that
enhances the quality of your professional work. Insufficient engagement is often around the
quality of reflection and the relevance of the supporting information across the whole scope of
work, so the appraiser is a valuable resource to help you improve the quality of the
documentation of your reflection and ensure your portfolio contains relevant supporting
information.