Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

News

Individual drug firms should stop paying for medical education

BMJ 2009; 338 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b442 (Published 04 February 2009) Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b442

Rapid Response:

UK Doctors should be able to offset medical education expenses against their tax bill

In order to revalidate doctors registered with the GMC will have to
fulfill the minimum requirements for Continuing Professional Development
(CPD) of their respective Royal Colleges. The requirements for re-
certification may be more onerous.

Currently the Inland Revenue do not allow doctors who are not self
employed to easily offset CPD expenses against their tax bill.

The drug industry is said to fund about half of all postgraduate
medical education. It is inevitable that if this proportion falls that
individual doctors will have a pay a greater share of their necessary CPD
expenses.

Government should agree that such expenses are fully tax deductible
for all medical practitioners.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

12 February 2009
John D Woods
Consultant Physician
Belfast BT9 7AB