If you qualified from medical school on or before 05 August 2024, you must take and pass the Clinical Assessment (CA) as a condition of your eligibility to apply to the Foundation Programme.
The purpose of the CA is to evaluate your fitness to begin work as a foundation doctor if you obtained your primary medical qualification more than two years prior to the start of the Foundation Programme.
The assessments will be delivered by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and will take place on 03, 04, 05 and 06 November 2025. You will only be required to attend on one of these dates.
There are no exceptions or exemptions. If you qualified from medical school on or before 05 August 2024, you must take and pass the Clinical Assessment (CA) as a condition of your eligibility to apply to the Foundation Programme, regardless of your citizenship, nationality, or GMC registration status. This is a requirement which forms part of the national person specification for entry to foundation training in the UK.
The UKFPO’s Clinical Assessments are conducted exclusively for the purpose of the eligibility application; therefore, alternative assessments are not accepted.
Non-urgent advice: IMPORTANT
Full guidance about the Clinical Assessment will be provided on this page in due course. If you are required to undertake the Clinical Assessment, please check this page regularly for updates.
If your PLAB exam falls on one of the assessment dates
We can ensure that you are not allocated to sit the Clinical Assessment on the same day as your pre-booked PLAB exam. Please email helpdesk@foundationprogramme.nhs.uk to let us know if this might affect you. Please include your Oriel PIN, and evidence of your PLAB exam booking when contacting us.
If your PLAB 1 exam is booked for outside of the UK, you have options.
Option 1: Request to change venue and sit PLAB 1 in the UK instead
You may wish to contact the GMC by emailing plab@gmc-uk.org to ask for priority access to available PLAB 1 places in the UK, and request to change the venue of your current booking. You must attach the email confirmation from Oriel to your PLAB booking request, to show that you have submitted an eligibility application to the UKFPO. The deadline to request a priority PLAB 1 test booking with the GMC is 31 August 2025. The GMC will no longer give priority to UKFP applicants who request a PLAB 1 booking after this date. Please note the UKFPO cannot guarantee availability of seats for PLAB, as this is managed by the GMC.
Option 2: Sit PLAB 1 outside of the UK, and request to be allocated to any other day for Clinical Assessment exam
If you wish to keep your PLAB booking and sit PLAB 1 outside of the UK, we can ensure that you are not allocated to sit the Clinical Assessment on the same day. Please note that it is not possible to request a specific date for your Clinical Assessment – we are only able to ensure that you are not allocated to the same date as your PLAB exam. As you may be allocated any other date for Clinical Assessment, please bear this in mind and ensure that you plan travel arrangements accordingly if you choose to sit PLAB 1 outside of the UK.
Frequently Asked Questions on Clinical Assessment can be found here.