Generic Capabilities Framework (GCF)

The Generic Capabilities Framework (GCF) was designed by the General Medical Council in close partnership with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. The framework was designed to establish the essential competencies required for safe, effective and high-quality medical care. It serves as a guideline for postgraduate medical education and training. Each discipline has its own distinct curriculum set by the medical colleges or faculties, approved by the GMC, the framework emphasises the principles and professional responsibilities that doctors must adhere to, translating these into educational outcomes that can be integrated into each specialty’s curricula.

The GCF has 9 domains in total, 3 fundamental domains and 6 targeted or themed domains:

• Domain 1 – Professional Values and Behaviours
• Domain 2 – Professional Skills
• Domain 3 – Professional Knowledge
• Domain 4 – Health promotion and illness prevention
• Domain 5 – Leadership and teamwork
• Domain 6 – Patient Safety and Quality Improvement
• Domain 7 – Safeguarding vulnerable
• Domain 8 – Education and Training
• Domain 9 – Research

The detailed descriptors for each domain can be accessed from GMC’s Generic Capabilities Document here.

The educational events delivered by the SAS NIMDTA team are labelled with the corresponding Domains from the GCF, the benefit of doing this is to allow SAS doctors and dentists to track and log their educational progress for their career development.
This can be used as:
• evidence for appraisal
• evidence of capabilities for career progression to a specialist grade and added to the specialist grade template
• evidence for an application to the portfolio pathway can be accessed here

Below are slides to show what has been covered so far as part of the SAS career development programme.

Click on the images to enlarge and read in more detail.

2025

2026

To see events linked to each domain click on the interactive wheel below: