General Medical Council (GMC) and Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS)

Who the GMC regulates

Every doctor practising in the UK must hold registration with the GMC, and most must also hold a licence to practise. The GMC's remit also covers physician associates and anaesthesia associates.

• Doctors (registered medical practitioners)
• Physician associates
• Anaesthesia associates

The medical register and GMC number

The GMC's medical register is public, free, and updated daily. You can search it by name or by 7-digit GMC reference number. Doctors must give you their GMC number on request; the number is also typically shown on practice websites, clinic letterheads, and prescriptions.

Each register entry shows the doctor's name, GMC reference number, year and country of qualification, gender, and registration status — including whether they hold a licence to practise. A doctor without a licence cannot prescribe, sign sick notes, or treat NHS patients, even if they remain on the register.

What the MPTS does

The MPTS runs hearings independently of the GMC's investigation function. Where the GMC refers a case, an MPTS tribunal decides whether the doctor's fitness to practise is impaired and, if so, what sanction to impose.

Sanctions a tribunal can impose include erasure (being struck off the register), suspension, conditions on practice, a warning, undertakings, or no action. Interim orders — temporary restrictions imposed before a substantive hearing — can also be made by an MPTS interim orders tribunal.

Where to find older MPTS decisions

The MPTS publishes recent tribunal decisions on its website. The GMC also removes erasure records from its register ten years after the date of erasure. After that point, the GMC's own search no longer shows that the doctor was struck off. MedicWatch retains the persistent record under the journalism exemption so the public can still find decisions that have aged out of the official indexes.