Changing your name with the General Medical Council

How to change your name on the medical register#

The GMC's page on your registered name puts it in one line: to change your name on the medical register, "you'll need to send us evidence, such as a marriage certificate or old and new passports." The route is its change of name application form, RSU2, last updated in June 2026 and linked from that page. The GMC's guide for physician associates and anaesthesia associates says plainly that you can't update your name in GMC Online, and its guide for doctors sends a change of name to the same electronic form.

The form says that before the GMC can process it you must complete every section, send your supporting evidence and agree to the declaration on page 4. Then email the form from your registered email address, with the evidence attached to the same email; GMC Online shows which address is registered. The GMC accepts PDF, DOC, JPEG, BMP and PNG files, and says it can't open HEIC files or OneDrive links. Nothing is posted, and the form asks for copies without saying they must be certified.

The form is for anyone who holds or has held GMC registration, which includes physician associates and anaesthesia associates. If you have never held registration or completed an ID check, it says to email a copy of your valid passport instead, and UK medical students contact their final year administrator until they graduate.

What evidence the GMC asks for#

RSU2 has a table of evidence for each kind of change:

The notes beneath the table set the rules. Your current document "must show your name as you'd like it to be displayed on the registers". The GMC may ask for evidence of your previous name, or for a digital ID check, and will contact you if it does. And, in the form's own words: "We won't accept a deed poll without an updated identity document."

After a deed poll, the passport or licence comes first#

A deed poll on its own will not change your GMC entry, so put the new name on your passport or your full driving licence first, using the deed poll, and then send the GMC a copy of that document with RSU2 and your statement of the reason. Changing your name with HM Passport Office and changing your name with DVLA set out those two applications, and how long it takes puts dates on them. If you cannot provide the evidence the table asks for, the form says to email the GMC, which will advise.

While the change goes through#

Keep using the name you are registered under until the GMC tells you it has made the change; the form says so in terms. The GMC's guidance on your registered name applies meanwhile. You may shorten your name in day-to-day contact with patients and colleagues, but you must use your full registered name when signing statutory documents, including prescriptions, know your GMC reference number, and make your registered name and number available to anyone who asks.

The declaration you sign commits you to using your registered name consistently for all activities related to your professional practice, and to making sure patients, colleagues and employers are aware of your change of name. It must not be more than three months old when the application is granted, and if processing takes longer the GMC may ask you to sign another. The GMC publishes no processing time for a change of name. Your employer's HR and payroll records are separate from the register, so tell your employer in its own right.

Your GMC reference number#

The GMC calls your reference number "the unique, seven digit number we give you" and says it "stays with you throughout your career". The one case in which it describes a second number is a change of name and gender status, below. Anyone can search its registers by name or by that number. Its guide to what the registers show lists your type of registration, whether you hold a licence to practise, GP or specialist registration, the date you registered, any fitness to practise history since 20 October 2005, your main qualification and training, and the organisation that looks after your appraisal. A former name is not on that list.

Changing your name and gender status#

This works differently. The GMC's guide to GMC Online says that if you want to practise using a name and gender status different from the details on the registers, you contact its registration services team by email or phone to find out how, and an experienced adviser handles the enquiry in confidence. The GMC then emails you an application form saying what evidence to send for the change of name, and it says you don't need to provide any evidence of your change of gender status.

The result is not a simple update. In the GMC's words: "Two separate entries will be published on the online registers. One will be under your old details; the other will be in your new details. Both entries have a different GMC reference number." In a letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 21 February 2025, the GMC said a doctor's fitness to practise history stays with the individual and remains visible for the same period whether or not they change gender, and that it may adapt what it publishes, for example by limited redaction, so as not to disclose information the Gender Recognition Act 2004 protects. After the Supreme Court's judgment in April 2025, it said it would review the ruling's relevance to its own policies and processes, so ask the adviser what applies now, through the GMC's contact page. Changing your name when you transition covers your other records, and who can see my former name? the privacy rules.

Other registers#

A change on the medical register does not reach any other register you are on. Professional regulators sets out how the others handle a new name.