Clinical Assessment

The assessments will be delivered by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. The team at Manchester has many years of experience of assessment and Clinical Competence Assessments (CCAs), from theoretical design, through evaluation to the practical provision of information to candidates. All candidates will sit a set of 12-station CCAs. Each station is 10 minutes long, including 1 minute of preparation time.

All candidates will sit this assessment in one session (approximately 4 hours). Instructions will be posted outside each station, giving clear guidance about the task to be performed at that station. In line with current practice, care will be taken to ensure accessibility and to avoid discrimination against candidates with disabilities or those whose first language is not English.

Applicants who are required to undertake the Clinical Assessment will be required to pay the full cost of £850 and this is non-refundable. Please check the eligibility timeline for the dates payment will be due.

The assessment will differ from day to day but will be based on a similar format. Candidates sitting the assessment in the morning or afternoon will be ‘quarantined’ to ensure they cannot come into contact with each other. Candidates will be unable to use their mobile phones during this period.

Please check the eligibility timeline for the Clinical Assessment dates. All applicants are only required to attend one of the dates.

Each candidate will be allocated a specific date and time for their assessment and will be notified of this. Applicants will also be supplied with more detailed information, including directions to the venue.

The assessments take place at Wythenshawe Hospital and Oxford Road Campus, part of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. The venue has excellent facilities.

These will be selected from the Wythenshawe Hospital’s pool of highly experienced simulated patients. All have undergone training in standardisation for CCAs and will be trained specifically for the roles within these assessments.

Candidates will be given a written report, analysing their performance on a station-by-station basis. As the stations are explicitly linked to many of the Foundation Programme curriculum competences of the Foundation Year 1 doctor, this will provide useful information for candidates on their strengths and weaknesses as they enter the Foundation Programme. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust is working closely with their colleagues in the North West of England Foundation School to ensure that the questions authentically represent the current NHS working environment.

Reasonable adjustments are practical changes to the delivery of the Clinical Assessment that mitigate the effects of particular applicants’ characteristics and/or circumstances, for example, a disability, health condition or impairment, or religious observance, on their ability to undertake the assessment, without changing the requirements of the assessment. No adjustment will be made to the standard of the Clinical Assessment, or the score achieved by any applicant.

Applicants may apply for reasonable adjustments on the grounds of the following criteria:

– A long-standing learning disability

– A long-term or permanent physical disability, health condition or impairment

– Temporary health condition or impairment, or acute flare-up of a long-term health condition

– Other, for example, religious observance

Applicants who require reasonable adjustments for CA must email helpdesk@foundationprogramme.nhs.uk with details and evidence of their requirements.

Candidates will not be told their result on the day of their Clinical Assessment. Instead, they will receive the pass/fail result and comprehensive feedback by email – please see the eligibility timeline for the date.

Information about the appeals procedure will be available on the UKFPO website before the start date of the assessments. Appeals will only be accepted about the process and not about academic judgement. Please check the eligibility timeline for dates regarding the CA appeals.