DOCTORS in the UK will pay an extra £5 next year to remain licensed to practice medicine but those in training will see no rise in their annual retention fee (ARF).
The GMC has announced that the ARF for licensed doctors will rise from £420 to £425 but for those who are registered without a licence the fee will rise by £2 to £152.
The fee paid by medical school graduates to become provisionally registered with the GMC will be frozen at £90, and the fee to move from provisional to full registration will be kept at £200. The fees for the postgraduate Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) have also been frozen at £420.
Doctors on incomes below £32,000 a year will continue to be eligible for a 50% discount.
The GMC has also announced that next year it plans to move around 130 posts from London to Manchester and that it will reform its defined benefit pension scheme for staff. The aim is to save up to £6 million a year by 2018 and to support more effective ways of working in the future.
Manchester will become the main centre of the GMC’s operations with a small London base and the organisation will also maintain a presence in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Niall Dickson, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, said: “We are determined that any rise in the annual retention fee will be kept to a minimum. The level of the ARF next year will be just over 1% above what it was in 2010. This small increase and the steps we will take as part of our efficiency programme are necessary to make sure we remain financially sustainable as an organisation.”
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