Once you’ve arrived in the UK your employer should enroll you on an OSCE preparation course and , you must sit your first OSCE exam within 12 weeks. You have up to 8 months and 3 attempts to pass your OSCE.

The full cost of the OSCE exam is £794, reduced from £992 in April 2019. The resit cost of the exam is £397 from £496. Tip – Before you book and pay for your exam, enquire to see if your NHS trust will fund your examination.

You must sit the OSCE exam in the UK and there are five approved test centres:

• Oxford Brookes University
• Ulster University
• Northampton University
• Northumbria University
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Each of the universities offer the OSCE in the different fields of nursing and midwifery

Typical skills which may be tested on their own or within a nursing/midwifery scenario include:

• Basic life support (adult, child and baby)
• Intramuscular injection
• Subcutaneous injection
• MDI= Metered Dose Inhaler
• Peak Expiratory Flow (PEF)
• MSU & Urinalysis
• Catheter Sample of Urine
• Removal of Urinary Catheter
• Safe disposal of sharps
• Medication administrations
• Peak flows
• Wound care Antt (15-minutes allocated for this skill)
• Fluid balance
• Hand hygiene
• Calculating drug dosages
• Vital signs
• Palpation (Midwifery)
• Auscultation of foetal heart (Midwifery)
• New born check (Midwifery)

Each of the universities offer the OSCE in the different fields of nursing and midwifery

Yes. Communication is at the heart of nursing and the OSCE exam will assess your full range of communication skills (verbal, non-verbal and written). You will receive marks for:

• Clearly explaining care, diagnosis, investigations and/or treatments
• Involving the patient in decision-making
• Communicating with relatives and healthcare professionals
• Seeking and obtaining informed consent
• Active listening
• Dealing appropriately with anxious, upset, worried patients and their family
• Giving clear instructions on discharge
• Giving advice on lifestyle, health promotion or risk factors
• Demonstrating compassion and care during communication
• Professional behaviour
• Adhering to the NMC’s guidelines

• Lack of communication – verbal, non-verbal and not listening to the patient
• Not reading the scenarios or instructions properly
• Touching the patient before conducting hand hygiene techniques
• Not checking for allergies
• Not ensuring patient safety
• Not gaining consent from the patient
• Not completing the station within the timeframe

Each station has a unique 20 criterion-based assessment sheet which will be matched to the scenario or skill being assessed. The criterion is mapped against the NMC’s standards for pre-registration education and the NMC Code. When it comes to your results, the NMC will email them to your personal email address within 5-days of your examination. You’ll either receive a pass, a partial fail (this requires a partial re-sit at 50% cost) or a full-fail (where you’ll be required to resit the full exam).

All OSCEs are recorded, and all OSCEs deemed a fail will always be reviewed by the panel of assessors on the day of the OSCE. Failed OSCEs are automatically remarked and checked as part of the quality-assurance process. The academic lead/centre manager and administration team will co-ordinate any appeals, complaints, reasonable adjustments and fitness-to-practise issues, and will refer such matters to the test panel for investigation and reporting to the NMC

The NMC will inform candidates of the result of the OSCE usually within 5 working days after the test is taken. In some instances, this may take up to 10 working days if new OSCE content is being introduced. The NMC test of competence Part 2 is made up of ten stations, split into:

• Four scenario stations (assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation)
• two sets of two linked skills stations
• Two written stations, one assessing professional values and one assessing evidence based practice.

If you are unsuccessful in up to seven stations, your re-sit will be charged at 50% cost: £397. If you are unsuccessful in eight or more stations, your re-sit will be charged at 100% cost: £794.

Your OSCE result will be uploaded to your NMC application and you will be able to continue your application for registration providing you have passed the CBT, paid your registration fee of £153 and the NMC have received your supporting declarations

Candidates have three opportunities to attempt each part of the test of competence. In exceptional cases, a further attempt at each part may be offered. This attempt will be agreed only by application to the NMC. The additional attempt will be granted in situations such as the following:

• The test centre did not follow agreed processes.
• The assessor behaved in a way that demonstrably did not comply with the agreed processes.
• There was an unanticipated interruption to the assessment, such as a fire alarm.
• Illness or severe anxiety in the candidate.

Candidates must wait at least 10 days between each sitting. Candidates can choose to take longer than 4 weeks between the second and final attempts. The OSCE will be passed or failed for each individual station. Re-sits will be required only for those stations the candidate failed. Re-sit candidates will take the same or a similar but different station(s) to the one(s) they failed. If the stations are not all passed in three sittings, then the whole OSCE must be re-taken.