MRCP(UK) is committed to ensuring the reliability of the PACES examination, ensuring that no candidate is unfairly either advantaged or disadvantaged by the new examination format. Ensuring the reliability of our examination is both a patient safety issue and a commitment to our candidates and our regulator the GMC.
In order to deliver on this commitment and ensure comparable outcomes for candidates with the new exam format as far as we possibly can, we need to monitor the first 3 diets of the new format (2023/3, 2024/1 and 2024/2) very carefully. This means we will need to analyse a significantly greater number of the total candidate results than normal and use additional standard setting methodologies and statistical analysis in our quality assurance processes. For the 2023.3 diet we will need to analyse ~90% of UK Trainee results before we can confidently release the final results.
Given that 90% of candidates will not have taken the examination until late in November, this will mean that the turnaround time for the release of results for the majority of candidates will be between 3 and 12 weeks, with an average wait of 8 weeks. Final results are due to be issued from 4 December 2023 onwards.
We apologise for the expected delay in issuing results. This process of analysing results is essential to ensure that all candidates are treated fairly.
We encourage candidates to submit a provisional application for PACES 2024.1 in November to ensure a place is reserved for you in 2024.1, should it be required. You will not be charged for this application until it has been confirmed that you need a place and have been allocated a slot in a centre.
We are aware that many candidates will need to have obtained full MRCP(UK) at the time of post offer for higher specialty recruitment in April 2024. We will be working closely with the three Colleges and national bodies to provide results within the required deadlines for recruitment.