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News: Moving on up

27 November 2009

GMC assessment centre moving to state-of-the-art new home.

The GMC’s Clinical Assessment Centre is moving from London to a new state-of-the-art centre in Manchester. The London office will hold its last exam in December before the service reopens in March next year.

International medical graduates have to demonstrate their professional skills and knowledge before they register with the GMC and seek work in the UK. Since the centre opened in 2003, over 25,000 candidates from more than 90 countries have visited the GMC to take Part 2 of the Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) exam where doctors’ practical and communication skills are assessed using lifelike anatomical body parts and actors to simulate patient examinations.

Doctors who graduated in India make up the largest group, with over 11,000 taking the test since 2003; followed by 4,400 doctors from Pakistan; and over 2,000 Nigerian graduates. Two thousand doctors per year are expected to attend the new centre which will continue to run performance assessments as part of investigations into doctors’ fitness to practise, as well as the PLAB test.