How is my evidence verified?

How do I verify my evidence?

The majority of your evidence needs to be verified. This applies to all documents that relate to your training and experience. A full list of the evidence that needs verifying can be found in the pro-forma provide below.

Who can verify evidence for you?

Training and experience evidence must be verified by someone in a medical supervisory, such as a consultant, position who:

  • works at the hospital where the training or experience took place
  • must be able to confirm that it’s a true and accurate record.
  • must be available for us to contact in the 3-4 months after you submit your evidence.

Employment letters and job descriptions can be verified by someone in Human Resources or Medical Staffing at the hospital the evidence relates to, but this can also be done by a consultant.

Pro-formas must only be signed off by one verifier so if you’re asking someone in HR or Medical Staffing to verify some of your evidence, they will need to complete a separate pro-forma for the evidence they’re verifying. You should only provide one pro-forma per hospital/institution you are providing evidence from.

We often have to return documents to applicants because they have not provided pro-formas or they have not been verified by an appropriate person. Evidence can’t be verified by:

  • a solicitor
  • admin staff.

This is because a solicitor or hospital admin staff won’t have the necessary clinical knowledge needed to confirm your documents are a true reflection of your work, or have access to the relevant systems and information to be able to do this.

Your current hospital can’t verify evidence from any other employers.

How do I get my evidence verified?

  1. Make sure your evidence is anonymised in line with our anonymisation guidance before you ask your verifier to complete the pro-forma (unless your verifier won’t be able to attest to the evidence without the information left in). Evidence must be fully anonymised before it’ submitted in your application. If we have to return any of your evidence to you for anonymisation reasons and you want to re-submit this, your verifier will need to complete a new pro-forma
  2. Identify one verifier per institution you’re drawing evidence from. The verifier should be someone in a medical supervisory role. 
  3. Complete a pro-forma for each verifier electronically. Download the pro-forma for verified evidence
  4. Complete one pro-forma for each separate institution your evidence is drawn from – including institutions overseas that you wish to provide evidence from
  5. Ask your verifier to check your evidence using the pro-forma you’ve filled in as a guide- they should to check their own or the institutions records to do so properly
  6. If your verifier can’t verify some or all of the evidence you have listed in your pro-forma, you’ll need to complete a new pro-forma for them to complete which only includes the evidence they can
  7. Once the verifier has checked your evidence they’ll need to complete parts 04 and 05 of the pro-forma electronically. View our guidance for verifiers.

You need to provide pro-formas for each submission of evidence throughout your application.

Evidence that doesn’t need to be verified

  • any evidence that requires authentication. You can find out which documents need authentication by checking our specialty specific guidance
  • your CV
  • 360 and multi-source feedback
  • continuing professional development (CPD) certificates, courses relevant to the curriculum, evidence of attendance at teaching or appraisal courses
  • publications (those available in the public domain)
  • reflective notes or diaries
  • honours, prizes, awards or discretionary points.

You must still provide copies of the above evidence as part of your application. 

How do I complete the pro-forma?

  • You must complete parts 01–03 of the proforma
  • In ‘01 Applicant details’, please give your full name and your GMC reference number
  • In ‘02 Hospital/Institution details’, you must give details for the hospital or institution the evidence relates to. Please note, this section isn’t to tell us who your current employer is, unless that’s where the evidence is from
  • If your evidence is from different hospitals or institutions, you must fill in a separate pro-forma for each place where you gained the experience
  • In part ‘03 Index of Evidence’, select the relevant evidence section from your bundle and:
    1. Give a brief and accurate description of what the evidence is that you’re providing is being verified from that hospital/institution – this should match the title of the document you’ve uploaded.  
    2. Include the type of document that is being verified (e.g. excel spreadsheet)
    3. Add the date that the document was issued/undertaken
    4. Add the total number of pages for that document. If a document is blank on one side, it is counted as one page. If a document has information on both sides of the page, it is counted as two pages. 
    5. If you aren’t providing one of the evidence types from the hospital or institution the pro-forma is for, you can leave the brief description blank for these evidence types
  • Parts 04–05 must be completed by your verifier.

We won’t submit evidence to the royal college or faculty for assessment unless it’s been correctly verified. Any evidence not correctly verified will be returned to you.

When you submit your evidence

Your pro-formas must be uploaded electronically in the section provided within the application. For review applications pro-formas should be provided within the first recommendation section. If your pro-formas aren’t provided in the relevant section, your application may be delayed

It’s your responsibility to make sure you have all the pro-formas from your verifiers to accompany your evidence before you send this to us – if you don’t provide pro-formas in line with our guidance, it will be returned to you and your application may be withdrawn.

How will my evidence be verified?

  • We’ll contact the verifier listed on your pro-formas within a week of receiving and reviewing them, and your evidence, to check they verified your evidence
  • We’ll provide your verifier with guidance on what is expected of them later in the process – we’re likely to need them to set up a GMC Connect account with us to enable us to verify a sample of your evidence later in your application
  • After we’ve reviewed the evidence provided for your application and you’re happy for us to send your application to the relevant Royal College or Faculty, we’ll send your verifiers a sample of your evidence to verify against the pro-forma you’ve provided
  • We need to receive a response from your verifiers to attest to this sample of evidence before we can submit your application to the relevant Royal College or Faculty.

What happens if my evidence can’t be verified?

  • We’ll give your verifier two weeks to verify the sample of evidence we have selected from the documents we’ve accepted as part of your application – we’ll share the sample of your documents via email or GMC Connect 
  • If we don’t receive a response, we’ll chase them, giving them a further week to respond
  • Where we don’t receive a response from your verifier, we’ll let you know and may suggest you provide an alternative verifier, who will need to complete a new pro-forma. We’ll offer you a short extension for your application to assist you but choosing a new verifier could delay your application
  • Where we’re unable to verify your evidence we won’t be able to accept this as part of your application.
  • Where we’ve been unable to verify evidence, we’ll give you the option of proceeding with your application without this evidence or withdrawing your application until you’re confident we’ll be able to verify it
  • If you withdraw your application before it’s submitted to the royal college or faculty for evaluation, we’ll give you a partial refund.

If you’re having difficulty finding an appropriate verifier, contact us to discuss your options. Call 0161 923 6602 or email

Authenticating your evidence

Certain pieces of your evidence must be authenticated. Evidence that requires authentication must be submitted in hard copy. The only evidence that needs authenticating is:

  • Evidence showing registration with overseas medical regulators.
  • Qualifications gained outside the UK.

Who can authenticate evidence for you?

  • A solicitor.
  • The awarding body.

What does authentication mean?

Authentication means the solicitor or awarding body must:

  • stamp
  • sign
  • date

a copy of the registration or qualification to confirm that it’s genuine. They’ll need to see a copy of the original to confirm this.

We won’t accept original certificates. These will be returned to you and you’ll be asked to send a copy instead.