Doctors in UK to face annual competence test: Report

It also says that family doctors, hospital consultants and private practitioners will have to apply to renew their licences every five years.

In the biggest reform of medical regulation for 150 years in the UK, inspectors will use evidence from patients questionnaires and feedback from colleagues to weed out incompetent doctors.

Doctors “unable to remedy significant shortfalls in their standards of practice” risk being removed from the medical register, The Times newspaper said on Wednesday.

The system, the first of its kind in the world, is designed to identify doctors who repeatedly make poor clinical decisions. Trials will begin within two years, the report said. The medical colleges, which represent different clinical specialties, will have to develop tests to check that doctors are keeping abreast of advances.

According to the British daily, at the moment doctors face no formal reassessments of their competence, clinical skills or performance between entering independent practice as a GP or consultant and retiring. The proposals were produced with the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the report said.