Little improvement in international graduate scores on CSA, show new figures
The gap between the proportion of international medical graduates and UK graduates failing the RCGP membership exam has only slightly narrowed, results released by the college reveal.
The results, revealed in the MRCGP annual report, show that almost 60% of IMGs failed the clinical skills assessment between August 2012 and July 2013, compared with 7.5% of UK graduates.
The performance of IMGs showed only a marginal improvement on the 2011/12 intake, where 65.3% of IMGs failed, and this change was in line with a small improvement in results across the board.
The differences in failure rates between UK graduates and international medical graduates taking the exam has been the subject of a long-running row over the past year and is set to culminate in a judicial review hearing in April.
International doctor leaders said they were ‘disappointed’ that there was ‘no significant change’ in the results.
The results showed that 63.8% of IMGs from a black and minority ethnic background failed the exam, compared with only 3.5% of white UK graduates.
The scores for the advanced knowledge test (AKT) also showed significant differences in failure rates between IMGs and UK graduates, although not as stark, with 12.3% of UK graduates failing compared with 47.9% of IMGs.
UK graduated black and minority ethnic doctors’ scores improved – from a failure rate of 18.2% last year to 15.6% this year – but this was still way down on white UK graduated GPs’ results.
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The judicial review into the differences in failure rates, instigated by the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and controversially backed by the BMA, is set to take place in April.
Dr Ramesh Mehta, the president of BAPIO, said: ‘We are disappointed that the story continues as before and there is no significant change. That clearly indicates that there has to be a change in the way assessment is carried out.’
‘We hope that once we have a positive result in the judicial review, we should be able to sit down with the college and look into a system of assessment that is fair and equitable.’
‘Patient safety and the quality of service remains of paramount importance to BAPIO.’
Dr Krishna Kasaraneni, chair of the GPC GP trainees subcommittee, said: ‘There still needs to be a lot of work to see why different groups and even medical schools have such different failure rates and this work needs to involve all stakeholders. The BMA would be happy to take part in that work.’
The MRCGP annual report also revealed that some candidates were allowed to retake the CSA exam because of ‘teething problems’ with the college’s new building.
It said: ‘Teething problems with the College’s new building meant that, because of unacceptable noise, some candidates sitting the November 2012 and May 2013 CSA were allowed an additional “non-counting” attempt subsequently.’
Proportion of graduates failing the CSA
| 2012/13 | 2011/12 | 2010/11 | |
| International medical graduates | 59.80% | 65.30% | 59.20% |
| UK graduates | 7.50% | 9.90% | 8.20% |
| IMG (black and minority ethnic) | 63.80% | 68.10% | 62.10% |
| IMG (white) | 37.10% | 45.10% | 31.40% |
| UK (black and minority ethnic) | 15.60% | 18.20% | 16.10% |
| UK (white) | 3.50% | 5.80% | 3.90% |
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