Medical students receive news of Foundation Year placements

Imperial medical students have been given the results of their placement applications for their Foundation Year after graduation.

Final year medical students have received news of the outcomes of their applications for Foundation Year placements, following a review of the results of the Situational Judgement Test which was used as part of the allocation process.  86.7% of Imperial medical students have been allocated one of their top five choices of foundation placement (slightly below the national average of 89%), with 47.9% of Imperial students being given their top choice. The Foundation Programme involves supervised clinical work in the year immediately after graduation.

Students received confirmation of their placements on 8 March from the UK Foundation Programme Office after a cross check of one part of the results used in a process to place medics for their Foundation year of employment. Allocations were originally announced on 25 February, but the possibility of errors in the scoring was raised by the College’s Faculty of Medicine along with other medical schools when a number of anomalous results were noted.  The checking process confirmed that across the UK the recorded answers of 148 individual applicants (2%) were affected by errors in the scanning of the multiple choice test sheets; 71 of those affected were allocated a higher preference, and 77 were allocated a school lower down their list of preferences.

President of the Imperial College School of Medicine Students' Union, Shiv Vohra, said: “The Situational Judgement Test marking blunder has rightfully caused a national outcry from final year medical students and medical schools alike. It’s particularly upsetting for our final years, given the proximity of their finals examinations. I have been liaising closely with Philippa Shallard to relay the concerns of our student body, and I would like to thank her and the rest of her team for being an invaluable source of information at this stressful time. I can only hope that everything goes uphill from here for our final years.”

Professor Derek Gallen, National Director of the UKFPO, apologised unreservedly and said, “I have not taken the scanning issue lightly, and the UKFPO and the MSC have requested that a full independent review of the process is conducted by Health Education England on behalf of the four UK Health Departments. We will publish the full findings of this review as soon as it has taken place.”