How to prepare for the Medical School UK

UK finals have no single national OSCE: your medical school sets and runs its own clinical and professional skills assessment (CPSA), and you must pass it and the applied knowledge test, the two parts of the GMC's Medical Licensing Assessment, to graduate. Prepare from your school's own assessment guidance and the GMC's MLA content map, practise the presentations, practical skills and professional behaviours it lists, and rehearse stations out loud to your school's timings.

Step by step

1. 1

   Start with your own school's rules

   Each school chooses its CPSA format, station types, number and length of stations, scoring and pass standard, and sets the dates. Get your school's assessment guidance, mark schemes and any practice circuits early, and check its resit rules; some schools charge for resits.

2. 2

   Read your school's GMC compliance report

   The GMC publishes a report on each school's CPSA, recording its review against the GMC's requirements. A report can describe the school's format, stations and scoring: UCL's, for example, covers its format, testing time, number and duration of stations and use of real and simulated patients.

3. 3

   Use the MLA content map as your checklist

   The content map sets out the core knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for UK practice and is the framework for CPSA content. Work through its patient presentations, conditions, practical skills and procedures, and clinical and professional capabilities, and tick off what you can do out loud.

4. 4

   Practise the three themes in every station

   Every CPSA must map to readiness for safe practice, managing uncertainty and delivering person-centred care, and must show you can identify and interpret clinical findings. In practice stations, say what you would do if the diagnosis is unclear, when you would escalate, and how you would involve the patient in decisions.

5. 5

   Get competent in the GMC's practical skills

   The GMC's Practical skills and procedures sets out the core procedures, and the minimum level of performance, you need when you start work. Practise them on models and, under supervision, on patients until you can perform and explain each one without prompts.

6. 6

   Treat professionalism as examined everywhere

   Every CPSA must assess professionalism and capture unprofessional behaviour. Use Achieving good medical practice to rehearse sharing information, supporting patients' decisions, safeguarding and being open when things go wrong, and treat every simulated patient as a real one.

7. 7

   Rehearse on placement, not just in the library

   The GMC describes the CPSA as responding to scenarios you might meet in clinical practice. Ask doctors on your placements to watch you take histories, examine and explain to real patients, and time your practice stations to your school's station length.

Official resources

• Taking the MLA: what the assessment involves (GMC)

  The GMC's guide for UK students on the AKT and CPSA, and how to prepare.

• MLA content map (GMC)

  The core knowledge, skills and behaviours that CPSA and AKT content is drawn from; the version in force from September 2026.

• Outcomes for graduates: Practical skills and procedures (GMC)

  The procedures, and the level of performance, you must reach before you start work.

• Achieving good medical practice: guidance for medical students (GMC)

  The professional standards expected of you as a student, the basis for professionalism in your CPSA.

• Requirements for the MLA Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (GMC)

  What every school's CPSA must do, including its themes, content sampling and assessment of professionalism.

• MLA compliance reports (GMC)

  The GMC's published report on each medical school's CPSA.

Questions candidates ask

Sources

• Taking the MLA: what the assessment involves (GMC)
• The Medical Licensing Assessment explained (GMC)
• Costs and test scores for taking the MLA (GMC)
• Requirements for the MLA Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (GMC, PDF)
• Quality assuring the clinical and professional skills assessment (CPSA) (GMC)
• MLA CPSA compliance decision: UCL Medical School, University College London (GMC, PDF, April 2024)
• MLA content map (GMC)
• Outcomes for graduates: Practical skills and procedures (GMC)
• Achieving good medical practice: guidance for medical students (GMC)
• Students' guide to the MLA: how can I prepare for the MLA? (GMC video transcript)
• MLA compliance reports for assessment providers (GMC)
• Assuring readiness for practice: a framework for the MLA (GMC, PDF, updated October 2024)

Checked on 27 September 2026.