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MRCPCH Clinical exams - update on adapted exam for the 2020.3 diet - July 2020

Thank you for your ongoing patience with us as we work towards safe delivery of the MRCPCH Clinical exam starting November 2020. We have been working hard with examiners, trainees, and the General Medical Council to ensure this exam remains safe, reliable and fair.  We are now in a position to provide more information about its delivery from the third diet of 2020 (2020.3).

Exam dates

To support the implementation of these changes, we have moved the date of the UK Clinical Exam from late October to late November (19-29 November) 2020. All overseas 2020-3 exams, except for Hong Kong, have been cancelled or postponed.  As we confirm 2021 dates, we will continue to post them on our website.

You can see the exam dates and application windows on our page, MRCPCH Clinical - how to apply.

Remote delivery

Due to the impact that COVID-19 has had on our ability to safely hold clinical exams, and particularly in mind of potential risks to the children, young people and families who take part, we are making some changes to the MRCPCH Clinical exam to ensure the safety of all involved.

As of November 2020, all clinical exams will be delivered remotely. We are working out the platform on which this can best be delivered.

Exam circuit and stations

To accommodate the remote delivery, we are making necessary adaptations to the circuit and stations. We'll provide further details in coming weeks, but can now confirm for the 2020.3 diet:

  • There will be no face-to-face MRCPCH Clinical exams held in any physical setting.
  • There will be no children and young people involved in the delivery of the exam circuit.
  • We expect the content and number of History, Communications and Video stations to remain the same.
  • The modifications to the Development and Clinical stations are in progress and therefore the specific details of how each of these stations will be run are not yet confirmed. 

We will provide updates and full guidance about these adaptations as and when they become available on this website.

Candidate guidance

We understand that this is a lot of information to process, and you may feel anxious or concerned about how everything will work. 

We will publish a new web page about this adapted MRCPCH Clinical exam, with FAQs and some detailed guidance documents, to support you with exam preparation. When this is available, we will add this to our Examinations pages, and post on X (formerly Twitter) on ..

We also plan to hold a live webinar about this adapted exam. Then we'll publish a recording of it on this website.

We know how important it is for you to have the appropriate information and tools to properly prepare yourself for this exam. We also understand that the information we have provided might give rise to a number of questions or concerns.  However, we ask for your patience during this time and that you wait until the FAQs, guidance documents and webinar are available; we anticipate your questions will be answered by these materials.

We will ensure that you have adequate time to adapt your preparations as a result of these changes. 

Once again, thank you for your patience as we work to make these changes.


For the latest updates, see see our Examinations page.