Recent reports have revealed that General Medical Council has declared a new process, which will be effective by the end of this year, under which, potential and ability of doctors in UK will be checked at regular intervals.

The General Medical Council announced: "There will be annual appraisals for all the UK's 230,000 doctors, with decisions about whether they merit "revalidation" every five years".

It has been recovered that these proposals were being discussed since the mid-90s. However, due to expenditure concerns, administration and also goals to be achieved, the introduction of the process was postponed since then.

It has been reported that the news for the introductions of such process has been well accepted by the patients. They welcomed the reports by stating that till date there had been no governing body, which looked at the performance of the doctors, although in few places doctors are given appraisals annually.

However, GMC has assured that their newly introduced scheme will cover all areas and all doctors in the UK. They also lay emphasis on areas, which require improvements and also take into consideration any complaints lodged against the doctor or any compliments received.

Moreover, they have confirmed that their scheme will include patients and other colleagues' assessment regarding the doctor.