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What makes Medicine at Worcester special?

We are still open to applications from international students for 2024 entry.

Our MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) is a 4-year, graduate-entry, programme that will prepare you to be a compassionate, highly skilled doctor able to pursue any career pathway you choose.

At Worcester, you’ll spend much of your time learning medicine in the community alongside patients, as well as studying on campus.  You’ll work closely with primary care teams, consultants and allied health professionals during a series of projects and placements - in general practice, outreach clinics, community hospitals and care facilities.

You will of course spend time in hospitals – for example on medical and surgical wards, from specialised cancer treatment centres and psychiatric in-patient units, to labour wards and research laboratories - but from your first weeks as a medical student you will meet patients in general practice and start to join them on their healthcare journey.

Overview

Overview

Key features

  • Open to graduates of any discipline. We welcome applications from graduates in any subject area, including non-science degrees.
  • Problem based learning. You’ll work in small groups facilitated by practicing doctors following a 'problem based learning' curriculum. This often starts with the problems patients bring to you, and means you will learn about health from both the doctors’ and patients’ perspective.
  • Community based. For much of the course you’ll be immersed in the community, NHS and local health care teams.
  • Clinical skills training. We're developing a brand-new specialist teaching space on campus, which will contain simulation facilities for clinical skills training.
  • Interdisciplinary. You’ll work and learn alongside students from a range of health professions courses – providing many opportunities to learn from one another.
  • Train for any specialism. You'll train to work as a medical doctor and with further training can practice in any specialist area, from General Practice or Public Health, to Psychiatry, Anaesthesia or Surgery.  
Exterior view of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson building. It is a gold-clad building. The sky is blue with a few clouds.

University of Worcester allocated 50 home Medicine MBChB places for 2024

The University of Worcester has been offered an allocation of 50 home places for its Three Counties Medical School for September 2024 entry.

Dean of the Three Counties Medical School, Professor Sandra Nicholson, said: “We are delighted to receive the news of these commissioned medical student places for 2024. We have all worked incredibly hard to secure Government funding and this endorsement highlights our commitment to increasing the local medical workforce and recognises the contribution that the Three Counties Medical School will make.”

Read the full story

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Entry requirements

Entry requirements

Entry Requirements

The MBChB course at Worcester is a graduate-entry programme. To be considered you will: 

  • hold, or be expected to achieve in the year of application, a 1st or 2:1 undergraduate degree in any subject (or 2:2 plus Masters or Doctoral degree)
  • have passed GCSEs (or equivalent) at grade C/4 or above in Maths and English*
  • not have previously commenced a medical degree in the UK or overseas

If your degree is in a non-Science subject you will also need to:

  • have passed GCSEs (or equivalent) at grade C/4 or above in two science subjects (maths is not included as a science subject)

*Applicants whose first language is not English must also:

  • have passed IELTS with a score of at least 7.0 overall, with 7 in the speaking component and at least 6.5 in all other in all components

 

Not a graduate? Consider our undergraduate degrees such as Medical Science BSc (Hons) or Psychology BSc (Hons).

Additional requirements

You will be required to pass UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) or GAMSAT (Graduate Medical Schools Admission Test) to a requisite level. If shortlisted you will be invited to sit the Casper situational judgment test AND attend two panel interviews.

Final acceptance onto the course will be subject to satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service check (or international equivalent), and an occupational health assessment.

Preference will be given in our overall holistic assessment for those applicants who fulfil one or more of these criteria:

  • Substantial geographical links to the area: e.g. childhood parental address, current address in Three Counties postcodes
  • Worcester graduate
  • First in family to go to university
  • Currently resident in POLAR quintiles 1 and 2
  • Working in, or significant knowledge of, the NHS 
  • Refugee status

 

Don't quite meet the entry requirements or returning to education (especially if already working in the NHS)? Consider studying Biological Science with Foundation Year or Healthcare Foundation Year.

Accreditation

Like all new medical schools this programme is undergoing the process of accreditation by the UK General Medical Council (GMC). This process will not be finalised until our first cohort is about to graduate. At any stage, including before admission of the first group, the GMC approval process can be halted.

As part of the new school accreditation process, the GMC require new medical schools to have a contingency plan which would be enacted should the School not successfully complete the process or progression is delayed. The contingency plan is in place to allow those students who have been enrolled and started as students on the Worcester course to complete their studies and receive a UK Primary Medical Qualification from an alternative awarding body. Worcester’s contingency school is Swansea University Medical School.

Students from other new Medical School have told us that they enjoyed being part of a process that helped shape a new School with modern approaches, modern attitudes and enthusiasm for success.

Three Counties Medical School

We have established a new Medical School to serve Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.

At Worcester, we have an excellent reputation for helping to develop nurses, midwives, physician associates, paramedics, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and social workers with an interdisciplinary and interprofessional approach. This has been achieved by close collaboration with the NHS and our graduates in these disciplines are highly regarded within the local healthcare community.

Building on our existing strengths in healthcare education, and our strong links with the NHS, we have established the Three Counties Medical School.

A member of the Firstpoint Team is helping a student

Impact

IMPACT is the university's people with lived experience group. We support the School of Allied Health and Community, the Three Counties School of Nursing and Midwifery, and the Three Counties Medical School, in the integration of Service Users and Carers throughout the educational process. We look forward to working closely with you as you learn with us.

Find out more about our 'IMPACT' group
Course content

Course content

Phase 1

Years 1 and 2

In this phase you will have early clinical contact with patients both in the community and in hospital.

Teaching and learning will be largely campus-based with lectures, practical sessions and small group work, augmented by an on-line virtual learning environment.

Phase 2

Years 3 and 4

Phase 2 will be spent almost entirely on clinical placement, though you will continue to be fully supported by the University.

Year 3 will consist entirely of long-term placements in primary and secondary care environments in the community.

In Year 4 you will be acting as an Assistant in both medical and surgical wards in one of the acute hospitals in the region in preparation for practice in the NHS Foundation Programme and beyond.

Projects

  • During Years 1 and 2 you will be required to complete two longitudinal studies, that bring the privilege of prolonged contact with patients.
  • In the Family Case Study you will be required to visit a family with a new baby in their home through which you will develop knowledge, skills and abilities in the context of the family, childbirth and child development, but also aspects of public health, psychology and sociology and of medical professionalism. 
  • In Living with a Diagnosis you will be allocated a patient living with a chronic condition to learn about the effect of that condition on the patient and their family. This will also be a chance to improve your communication and clinical skills. You are able to indicate an area of particular interest (e.g. neurological, psychiatric, cardiology, oncology) and your GP tutor will endeavour to find a patient within this speciality if possible.
  • In year 3 you will start to work with the principles of quality improvement by designing and carrying out your own project. This will support your development as a well-rounded doctor, able to take a more system-wide approach to the role in contemporary healthcare organisations.
Teaching and assessment

Teaching and assessment

Our MBChB programme is developed according to the General Medical Council Outcomes for Graduates (2018). These outcomes describe what a graduate from this course is expected to be able to demonstrate.

The learning opportunities that enable the development of these outcomes might occur at planned and unplanned times and in expected and unexpected ways.  The best teachers are the patients, but they do not arrive in accordance with the curriculum; you will be expected to be flexible and seek out the maximum experience from the learning opportunities. 

This means that although many opportunities are designed, others, and perhaps the most valuable, will be opportunistic; they just happen. The curriculum is ‘spiral’ which means that certain topics or areas might come up time and again and as you travel round the spiral, you will broaden and deepen your understanding. The responsibility for this developmental progress is ultimately yours as the student, although we will certainly do everything we can to ensure you have all the facilities, support and opportunities you need to achieve your goals.  

Teaching

As a graduate you’ll know the importance of self-directed learning. You’ll be taught by patients, doctors and other members of the healthcare team (in addition to basic and applied scientists), and it will be up to you to make the most of these valuable learning opportunities.

All your teaching and learning activity, including assessments and work-place based assessments, will be documented in an eportfolio, where you will be required to reflect on your progress towards Outcomes for Graduates.

Contact time

The course is full-time, and you should be prepared for eight hours of learning every day. About half of this will be in small groups, facilitated by tutors and co-learning with other students, or listening to lectures or in skills-based sessions, seminars and tutorials.

When on placement you will attend formal teaching sessions and should actively seek out learning opportunities with patients. Much of the teaching will utilise Blackboard, our virtual learning environment

Independent self study

In addition to the contact time, you are expected to be a self-directed learner.

Typically, in Phase one (years one and two) this will involve following up on resources in the learning weeks, reading around the topics in order to reinforce the content, completing online activities, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking research in the library and online, preparing coursework assignments, presentations and project work.

In Phase two (years three and four) there will be more clinical content and you will need to be reading up on patients you have seen in the day. You will be practising clinical skills, which might also include practising some examinations on each other. Although this might sound daunting it is an excellent way to understand normal anatomy and how to set 'patients' at their ease and we have a number of ways to make this safe, private and comfortable for all students.

Independent learning is supported by a range of learning facilities, including The Hive library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources. If needed you will also have access to learning resources such as study skills and additional English language support.

Duration

  • 4 years full-time

There is no part-time option.

Location of teaching

In Phase one (years one and two) the majority of the time will be spent on campus.  Here you will work in a problem-based learning group, with access to a ‘Resource Carousel’ of learning aids, clinical skills practice and opportunities to talk to patients and simulated patients.

Also, in Phase one a total of 15 weeks is spent on placement in secondary care (hospitals). You will also spend one day every three weeks on placement in primary care (General Practice); this amounts to a total of four weeks.  These placements can be in clinical areas anywhere in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

In Phase 2 (years three and four) you will be in clinical areas for the whole time; in year three in the community (both primary and secondary care) and in year four in secondary care in acute hospitals. In final year there is also an elective opportunity.

We will make the most of digital technology and asynchronous learning which means you will be introduced, for example, to video podcasts that can be accessed at a time and location convenient to you, and to online tutorials and seminars.

The location of placements could be anywhere in the Three Counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, and can involve extensive travel around the region.

Timetables

Please note that scheduled teaching is mandatory and can take place on any day of the week; some classes can be scheduled in the evenings. You may be expected to attend placements out of hours and at weekends and we encourage you to take up the unique opportunities that that offers. Sometimes going onto the wards at weekends means you will have greater access to junior doctors willing to teach, or to spend more time with patients.  

You are likely to find the pace fast and your days busy. Most students will not be able to work many sessions in paid employment in parallel with their studies. The course is challenging but rewarding, and you will be well supported along the way.

A week in the life of a medical student

A week in the life of a Three Counties Medical School student - Phase One

At the start of each week you will need to read the Study Guide which sets out the learning outcomes and learning opportunities for the week. On Monday the first formal session is in a lecture format and is called ‘Map Reading’ because the tutor will go through the ‘journey’ planned for the week - where you will go, what you will see and what you will bring back home. 

The next session is Problem Based Learning (PBL).  Here you will be in a group of about eight students with a facilitator who is a doctor.  The facilitator is not there to teach; indeed, he or she will spend most of the time listening. 

You will be discussing two or three ‘Presentations’, realistic patient scenarios that a doctor might encounter. 

The aim is to identify what you know and what you do not know in order to understand the problem or problems (there are usually several) that the patient presents.  The facilitator will keep you on track. The Presentations are carefully constructed to point to the learning required in the week.  You will end up with a number of learning outcomes, things you don’t know or understand.

The next session is learning about the consultation, the key interaction between doctor and patient.  This will be either talking to a simulated patient (usually an actor) or performing a physical examination.  This will be examining each other but we have guidelines on how this is done to avoid embarrassment.

Most of the rest of the week is about finding out the answers to the questions posed in the PBL groups.  Some of this is in the form of a ‘carousel’ where you will learn about normal and abnormal structure and function. This might include anatomical models or images.  Another is called ‘applied physiology and procedural skills’ where you will learn skills and procedures such as venepuncture.  These are all linked to the learning outcomes for the week and the PBL presentations.

One week in three you will be on a placement in primary care where you are likely to meet patients with similar problems to those in the PBL group and discuss your progress with the Year Long Case Studies.

Then it’s another PBL session where you discuss what you have learned; do we all now understand the Presentations, is there anything else we don’t know?

At the end of the week there is a ‘wrap up’ session where we all go back to the Map and see what we have learned.

A week in the life of a Three Counties Medical School student - Year 3

Every week will be as varied as the patients but here are some of the experiences you can expect.  Not all will happen each week!

  • Sitting in on a GP surgery
  • Consulting on your own under supervision
  • Attending a specialist clinic in the local hospital
  • Attending an endoscopy session in the local hospital
  • Spending an evening and a night on acute paediatric admissions
  • Performing a ward round on patients in the community hospital with student members of other health care staff
  • Spending time with the psychiatric ‘crisis team’
  • Having your consultation skills observed by your educational supervisor and receiving feedback on them
  • Taking part in a ‘communications master class’
  • Attending a webinar.

Problem Based Learning

Problem Based Learning, or PBL, means you’ll work in small groups facilitated by practicing doctors following a 'problem based learning' curriculum.  This often starts with the problems patients bring to you, and means you will learn about health from both the doctors’ and patients’ perspective.

For more information watch this video introduction to Problem Based Learning at the Three Counties Medical School.

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the learning outcomes of your course. Often that is likely to be by practicing clinicians and all the problem-based learning facilitators will be medical practitioners.

You will mainly be taught by senior academics,  and expert technicians will support practical sessions. We value and respect the multi-disciplinary nature of healthcare delivery in the UK and you will be fortunate to also number nurses, midwives, paramedics, physicians’ associates and others among your teachers.

Assessment

The MBChB award is continuously assessed and we only accept students we think will be able to complete the course satisfactorily. If you engage and take up all learning and teaching opportunities, there should be no surprises about your progress through the course. You will complete mandatory ‘formative assessments’ throughout your course, to give you feedback on your progress and enable extra support or action to be taken if needed.

There are also a number of ‘summative assessments’ that enable us to make decisions about students’ progression to the next stage. Assessment methods include multiple choice exams, OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examination), presentations, posters, on-line activities and project reports.  You will also have an eportfolio which logs and demonstrates progress in a series of workplace based assessments from your clinical placements and mimics the assessments you will continue to undergo when you are a doctor and start further speciality training.

In Phase 2 of the MBChB programme assessment will primarily focus on the assessment of work based capabilities, assessment of procedural ability is through an OSCE and applied knowledge assessed through a series of applied knowledge tests.

At the end of each year a judgement is reached on whether you have reached the minimum requirement to progress to the next year of the course.

The General Medical Council sets a Prescribing Safety Assessment and the final Medical Licencing Assessment to ensure all graduates reach the appropriate standard to become a doctor and enter the medical workforce. They accredit all medical schools to ensure the degree they run is fit for purpose.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document.

2 students stood smiling and facing each other on Worcester bridge, with Worcester Cathedral in the background

The City of Worcester

Worcester is an ideal location - it is big enough to allow you to experience British life, but small enough for you to become part of the community.

Discover Worcester
Careers

Careers

After graduating from the Three Counties Medical School and completing the two year Foundation Programme, you’ll be in a position to apply for posts within your chosen speciality. For most these will be hospital and primary care posts in the NHS, but there are also research and commercial opportunities in fields such as the pharmaceutical industry, law and the media.  

For international applicants it is your responsibility to ensure that the University of Worcester MBChB ,which will on graduation be your Primary Medical Qualification (PMQ), satisfies the requirements of the country in which you wish to work.

What is the Foundation Programme? 

The UK Foundation Programme is a two-year, work-based training programme which is intended to bridge the gap between medical school and specialty or general practice training.

As a graduate of our MBChB you will be in a position to provisionally register with the GMC (providing you meet all of the GMC's Fitness to Practise guidelines) and apply to become a Foundation Year 1 doctor. Access to the Foundation Programme is competitive and subject to you meeting all the eligibility criteria. After that you will be working primarily in hospitals to consolidate your knowledge.

Foundation Programmes are run through Foundation Schools. In the Three Counties area these are the West Midlands South Foundation School, covering Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and the Severn Deanery Foundation School, covering Gloucestershire. 

Costs

Fees and funding

Full-time tuition fees

Home students

As a Home student studying Graduate Entry Medicine you will be charged a tuition fee of £9,250 per year (subject to changes in the government tuition fee cap) for the 4 years of your programme.

You will be able to apply for a tuition fee loan from Student Finance to partly cover this cost as follows:

  • Year 1 of the programme - £5,785
  • Years 2-4 of the programme - £5,535 p.a.

In Year 1 the amount not covered by Student Finance is £3,465 and in Years 2-4 it is £3,715 p.a.

International and EU students

The fees for International and EU students enrolling in the 2024/25 academic year are £46,500 per year.

International students who attend an interview in Worcester and are then offered a place, are able to claim back up to £500 from their first year tuition fee to cover travel costs.

Tuition fees are reviewed annually and may increase during the course. For more details, please visit our course fees page.

Funding and Scholarships

Home students

You will be entitled to apply for a means-tested Maintenance Loan from Student Finance.

In Year 1 the amount of Maintenance Loan is as for a standard undergraduate programme.

In Years 2-4 the Maintenance Loan entitlement is reduced as Home students are normally entitled to an NHS bursary. Visit the NHS Business Services Authority website to find out more about NHS bursaries.

Detailed information on loans and funding for this course will be discussed with you as part of the application and offer process.

John Weston Stretton Charity Grants

Home students

If you are a Home student applying for this course then you may be eligible for a grant to ease the cost of living of up to £4,000 from the John Weston Stretton Charity.

The charity was set up in the memory of three fascinating Victorian/Edwardian doctors and surgeons, all from the same Kidderminster family.

Find out more about the John Weston Stretton Charity and how to make an application

Additional costs

Students will be expected to own their own stethoscope and ophthalmoscope, particularly for clinical placements. We do have limited numbers that can be borrowed for on-campus skills training.

You will need access to a computer or tablet with reliable internet access.  The course also involves day-to-day costs for printing, stationery, books etc. not all of these are covered by the course fee.  

Please note that early and frequent clinical placements mean you will need to think about how you will travel around the region. Some students bring cars and others car-pool with fellow students and share costs. The University does have several charging points for electric cars and a bicycle hire scheme for local trips.

Accommodation

Finding the right accommodation is paramount to your university experience. Our halls of residence are home to friendly student communities, making them great places to live and study.

We have over 1,000 rooms across our range of student halls. With rooms to suit every budget and need, from our 'Traditional Hall' at £131 per week to 'En-suite Premium' at £221 per week (2024/25 prices).

For full details visit our accommodation page.

How to apply

How to apply

Application FAQs

Please take a look at our Application FAQs if you have any questions about applying for the MBChB at Worcester.

Applying through UCAS

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery MBChB

UCAS is the central organisation through which applications are processed for entry onto full-time undergraduate courses in Higher Education in the UK.

Read our How to apply pages for more information on applying and to find out what happens to your application.

Apply via UCAS for 2024 entry

We are still open to applications from international students for 2024 entry.

Get in touch

If you have any questions, please get in touch. We're here to help you every step of the way.