Exams News & Updates

Our exams

Thousands of candidates across the UK and abroad take our exams each year, via strictly controlled and regulated conditions. We work with third party suppliers to ensure that these exams are delivered as scheduled and that the appropriate control measures are in place.

While the majority of our exams run without problem, occasionally incidents do happen despite our best efforts which mean some candidates are adversely affected – such as technical errors, loss of internet, power outages, transport delays and strikes etc. This sometimes means that a small number of candidates are inconvenienced, are unable to take the exam as planned, or have to take the exam again. While every measure is taken to reduce these incidents, we acknowledge that when they do happen they have a negative and distressing impact on those candidates affected. On the occasions when this occurs, we always investigate what has happened and will always try to work with the candidates to resolve the issue in the best way possible and as quickly as possible. If the issue results from a supplier service failure we will hold them to account and seek to find ways to enhance the supplier service to stop the error happening again. We always seek to make improvements to our systems and processes wherever possible and inform the relevant parties involved of what has happened and what remedial action we are taking.

In the interests of transparency, we list such incidents here, along with other exam news.

If you have been affected by any of these incidents, you can contact us on: exams@rcem.ac.uk.

2023

April 2023 – MRCEM SBA

Our delivery partner confirmed that they had incorrectly issued a previous version of the MRCEM SBA exam (from September 2022) to 19 international candidates at the sitting of the MRCEM SBA on 25 April 2023. Of those 19 people, six people had already taken the exam in September and this means that they will be required to take the exam again in the next round in October 2023. For the 13 remaining candidates, we are currently exploring all available options to us, including whether this can be counted as a valid test or if there is a possibility candidates may need to take the exam again. All those affected have been contacted directly and had their exams fees refunded.
An investigation with the delivery partner is ongoing as to how this happened.

March 2023 – FRCEM SBA

A technical error occurred at two test centres in Leicester and Nottingham on 15 March whereby both locations experienced a technical failure which meant the exam couldn’t be loaded. All candidates from Nottingham were moved to the Derby test centre and completed the exam without issue. All candidates from Leicester were moved to online appointments and all were able to complete the exam.

2022

December 2022 – MRCEM OSCE

On Friday 3 February 2023 10 candidates who sat the examination in the afternoon of 6 December 2022 were issued with the incorrect feedback. This incident related to MRCEM OSCE candidates to whom feedback was sent after the results were released earlier that week. The results that were issued were correct. This error related to the distribution of feedback only. The error occurred in relation to the management of candidate information, and their associated email addresses which is currently undertaken via spreadsheets. This manual handling of spreadsheets will be reduced once the upgrade to new software is implemented, which is expected to be completed in summer 2023.

March 2022 – FRCEM SBA MCQ

On 13 April 2022, candidates who had undertaken the March 15 FRCEM 2022 SBA MCQ exam were given their assessment results. Subsequently candidates got in touch with RCEM to query the addition of marks on their feedback and an investigation found there had been an error in the processing of the results. This meant that 50 candidates had been informed that they had passed the assessment when, in fact, they had failed. A significant internal investigation and an external review in the matter was conducted, the outcome of which you can read here: https://rcem.ac.uk/independent-review-into-exams-published/

Latest exam news and statements

Update July 2023

• Progress on our Examinations Process Improvement Programme

Update March 2023

Exam blueprints for both the MRCEM SBA & FRCEM SBA have been updated.
The Curriculum has been updated with minor changes to standardise exam names and to reflect new station timings for the MRCEM OSCE.

Previous News & Statements

• Exams update from the Chief Executive Officer (30 August 2022)
• Oversubscribed OSCE exams – increased places in 2023 (25 August 2022)
• Delays to publication of exam results (29 June 2022)
• March 2022 FRCEM SBA exam results situation update (18 May 2022)
• RCEM statement on the March 2022 FRCEM SBA exam (16 May 2022)
• Statement re MRCEM SBA February 2022 Results (5 April 2022)