How do you check your specialist is on the GMC register?

This is the one check that separates a regulated clinic from everything else, it takes about two minutes, and almost nobody does it. The register is public, free and searchable by name.

Why this particular check matters

Because the legal authority to start your prescription rests on it. The 2018 regulations permit unlicensed cannabis-based products to be prescribed by doctors on the GMC Specialist Register, and by nobody else.

Every other reassurance a clinic offers is softer than this one. Website copy, review scores and titles like consultant or medical director are not regulated in the way registration is. Specialist Register entry either exists or it does not, and you can confirm it yourself without asking anyone's permission.

It is also the check that catches the rarer, more serious problem: someone prescribing who is not entitled to. A prescription written by a clinician without that entitlement is not a valid route to lawful possession.

How to check, step by step

Search the GMC's public register by the clinician's full name. If you have their GMC reference number, use that instead, because names repeat and numbers do not.

1. Ask the clinic for the prescribing clinician's full name and GMC reference number. A regulated clinic will give you both without hesitation, and hesitation is itself informative.
2. Open the GMC register search at gmc-uk.org and enter the number, or the surname and initial.
3. Filter by doctors on the Specialist Register if you are searching by name and get more than one result.
4. Open the entry and check the name matches the person you consulted with, not simply someone at the same clinic.
5. Read the three things that matter: registration status, licence to practise, and the specialties listed.

If the clinic will not give you a reference number, you can still search by name, but treat the refusal as an answer in itself.

What the register entry tells you

More than most people expect. The entry is the GMC's own record, updated by the regulator rather than by the doctor or the clinic.

The specialty listing deserves a second look. A clinician can be legitimately on the Specialist Register in a field with little bearing on why you are being seen. That is not misconduct, and it is not hidden — but it is worth knowing, and it is a reasonable thing to ask about.

What if you cannot find them?

Do not assume the worst first. Names are recorded formally, spellings differ, and doctors are listed under the name the GMC holds rather than the one on a clinic website.

• Try the surname alone, then the surname with an initial
• Try any alternative or pre-marriage name the clinic gives you
• Ask the clinic directly for the GMC reference number and search on that

If after that there is still no entry, or the entry shows no licence to practise, stop and ask the clinic to explain before going any further. A regulated clinic will answer a registration question straightforwardly, because it is asked routinely.

The wider set of warning signs is in Can I get medical cannabis for myself in the UK?

The other two registers worth knowing

Your prescription passes through more than one regulated body, and each has a public register of its own.

• The GPhC registers pharmacies and pharmacists. The pharmacy dispensing your medicine should appear on it.
• The CQC, and its equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, registers and inspects clinics providing regulated activities in England.

Together with the GMC entry, those three checks tell you more about a clinic than any amount of marketing copy. What happens after the prescription is written is covered in How is medical cannabis dispensed and delivered?

What to do with this

Nothing on this page decides anything about your own case. What decides it is an assessment by a specialist who has seen your records, and the useful preparation is your diagnosis, the treatments you have already tried, and what happened with each.

Doing this check before a consultation is more useful than doing it after, and it costs nothing. The consultation itself, and what happens after it, is set out in What is the process to get a medical cannabis prescription?

Patient guide · Written by the Flora House editorial team · Last reviewed: 8 September 2026