25 August 2022
There is currently an extremely high demand for exams places, but we are planning to expand our capacity to facilitate extra places in 2023.
We understand the frustrations of candidates who have not been allocated an examination place and apologise that we cannot accommodate everyone for their desired dates.
Demand for MRCEM & FRCEM OSCE exams has continued to grow as the number of candidates progressing through written exams has increased.
We are therefore planning to increase capacity for both MRCEM & FRCEM OSCEs in 2023 by running an additional 200 exam spaces in the UK.
Over the past two years, our ability to recruit and train new examiners has been heavily affected by the pandemic. Examiners for OSCEs do not just examine on the day of the exam, but also write the content of stations themselves, meaning it can be a sizeable time commitment. We started a major recruitment drive for new examiners earlier this year and have improved our numbers since then. This work to expand our examiner network means we anticipate having significantly higher numbers of examiners going into 2023.
However, we are always looking to expand our examiner pool and would urge anyone interested in becoming an examiner to get in touch. We are holding four examiner workshops across September and October 2022 to provide training.
We know the impact that having to wait can have on candidates and know that this will be of little consolation to those who have missed out on a place this year but hope that the assurance of extra places next year will be welcome news.
