Yes 

As long as you hold Medical Council registration on the Supervised, General or Specialist Register, you must be enrolled on a Professional Competence Scheme.  Your legal requirement to engage in Professional Competence is tied to your Medical Council Registration, not your employment status

See: Medical Council information for retired doctors who continue the practice of medicine on an ad-hoc basis. 


What to do if you are retired

First of all, which scenario applies to you?

  • Fully retired - You no longer see patients and are not engaged in any activity that requires registration with the Medical Council
  • Partially retired - You occasionally see patients or are engaged in activities that require you to be registered with the Medical Council, e.g. teaching, tutoring, medico-legal work, professional advisor, etc.

Retired medical practitioners are subject to the same professional competence requirements as all other practising doctors.

If you are fully retired and do not intend to do any medical work in the foreseeable future, then it will be very difficult to meet the Professional Competence requirements as set out by the Medical Council. In this case, you may wish to consider voluntary withdrawal from the Register.  

There is information for retired doctors on the Medical Council website and it might be useful to contact the Medical Council Professional Competence Scheme section.

If you have partially retired and are still involved in medically-related activities such as advisory, academic or medico-legal work, then you are obliged to fulfil your statutory duty to maintain professional competence.


Download:  RCPI Guide for Retired Doctors