Good Medical Practice 2024: What Changed From the 2013 Version

Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, MBBS, MRCS, MRCGP, Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics · Updated 4 November 2026

What is new in Good medical practice 2024?

Good medical practice is the GMC’s core standard for the medical professionals it registers. The 2024 edition keeps the principles doctors already know, such as working in partnership with patients and keeping skills up to date, and the GMC says the update aims to help doctors create respectful, fair and compassionate workplaces for colleagues and patients. It names five areas of change:

1. Respectful, fair and compassionate workplaces: behaviours and values that support good team work and make everyone feel safe to speak up.
2. Patient-centred care: patients have the right to be involved in decisions about their treatment and care, and you must recognise a patient’s right to choose whether to accept your advice.
3. Tackling discrimination against patients and colleagues.
4. Fair and inclusive leadership: duties for doctors in formal leadership or management roles.
5. Continuity of care and safe delegation: how care is handed over and shared safely.

The 2024 standards sit in four domains: Knowledge, skills and development; Patients, partnership and communication; Colleagues, culture and safety; and Trust and professionalism. The standards also apply to physician associates and anaesthesia associates, from 13 December 2024.

Sexual harassment and the duty to act

The clearest new duties are in paragraphs 56 to 59. The GMC’s ethical hub on sexual misconduct explains them:

• Your own conduct. You must not act in a sexual way towards colleagues, where that conduct has the effect or purpose of causing offence, embarrassment, humiliation or distress. The standards also say you must not act in a sexual way towards patients.
• When you see it (paragraph 58). If you witness a colleague acting in this way, you should act. The GMC lists options that include checking in with the person affected and challenging the behaviour; reporting may also be right under your workplace policy.
• If you lead or manage (paragraph 59). A doctor in a formal leadership or management role who witnesses any of the behaviours in paragraphs 56 or 57 must act: make sure the behaviour is addressed, the people affected are supported, and concerns are escalated where needed.

Sexual conduct towards a patient is a boundary concern as well. Our guide to sexual boundaries and sexual misconduct sets out how regulators look at it.

How Good medical practice 2024 is worded

The GMC says the standards describe good practice but are not a set of rules: you apply them using your judgement in the circumstances you face. The duties in each domain are written as direct instructions, such as “provide”, “respect” and “protect”, and the core statements keep the language of trust: patients must be able to trust medical professionals, and you must make the care of patients your first concern. The GMC adds that you should be open if things go wrong and help create a workplace where everyone feels safe to ask questions, talk about errors and raise concerns.

For a domain-by-domain walk through the standards themselves, see our guide to Good medical practice explained. This guide covers only what is new.

What Good medical practice 2024 means in a fitness to practise case

After its consultation, the GMC added a detailed explanation of how the standards relate to fitness to practise procedures. When a concern is raised, the GMC says it considers:

• how serious the concern is;
• the systems and interpersonal factors in the working environment at the time;
• how the professional responded, including their insight and remediation.

That third point is the one you can act on. A letter that quotes a paragraph of Good medical practice is asking whether you understand the duty and what you have done since. A course on the subject of the concern, a written reflection and evidence that your practice has changed answer that question. The first steps after a GMC letter are in our guide to GMC investigation advice for doctors, and the course for each kind of concern is in our GMC courses guide.

Supporting guidance and CPD

The GMC refreshed its supporting guidance to build on Good medical practice 2024, and the refreshed guidance took effect on the same dates as the main standards. Topics such as personal and professional boundaries have their own GMC guidance, which you read alongside the core standards.

For appraisal, reading what changed and reflecting on how it affects your own work is CPD. Write down which of the five areas touches your role (for example, the leadership duties if you supervise others), what you now do differently, and bring it to your annual appraisal. How online CPD counts for GMC appraisal is in our guide to online CPD courses for doctors.

The course on the standards

Courses that sit beside it

A team buying for its doctors can use Bulk Buy: £200 for 3 courses, £300 for 5, £500 for 10. Not sure which course fits? Book a free 15-minute call or see which course do I need.

Guides that help

The CPD courses linked from this guide, Ethics and Ethical Standards for Doctors, Professionalism and Professional Standards for Doctors, Ensuring Dignity and Non-Discrimination as Healthcare Professionals and Ethical Boundaries with Patients and Colleagues, are by Probity & Ethics, written by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, CPD certified and accredited by The CPD Certification Service (provider no. 13197) and offered since 2020.

Questions and answers