Medicine

If you fail your reassessments you will be referred to the School of Medicine Progress Committee to decide whether you can be granted a repeat year. The committee will consider your circumstances, including anything affected your work during the year and whether this will continue to impact your studies if you continue with the course.

You may also be referred to a  Progress Committee, or a Health and Conduct Committee (see Fitness to Practise for information) if there are concerns about your attendance.  

Exceptional Circumstances are health matters or personal circumstances which may have affected your performance. You are expected to raise ECs through the official process on eVision as soon as you are aware of them and no later than 5 working days after an exam. If you haven't submitted ECs you will not be able to raise them in a Progress Committee.

You must submit evidence to support your circumstances. For health issues you should try to get evidence from registered health care professional who is not a family member.  An Occupational Health assessment may also be required.

The School will not accept as ECs:

• Retrospectively informing the School of ill health or the ill health of family or a friend, or of a long-term personal circumstance.
• Attendance or timekeeping issues caused by commuting. 
• Paid employment or other non-curricular activities that has interefered with your studies.. 

You will be informed by email that you have been referred to Progress Committee, the reason for the referral and the date and time of the hearing. You must be given at least 5 calendar days notice before the meeting.

You are expected to respond to say whether you will be attending - you are not required to attend as they can make a decision without you, but it is usually advisable to co-operate with the process as much as possible. If you don't attend, make sure you still submit a statement and evidence for the Committee to consider. You can bring someone with you to support you as long as they are a member of the University - this includes ASK advisers.

The Committee will have a copy of your statement and evidence. They will also have your record, including your academic transcript, attendance tracker, any Occupational Health information, relevant School correspondence and copies of any meeting notes (this will not include notes from confidential welfare meetings). They will consider all the documents before you are invited to join the meeting. 

When you have arrived, the Committee will discuss your academic situation, along with any evidence of any exceptional circumstances you have submitted. You will then be invited to make your case and the Committee will take it in turns to ask you questions. They will explore how any problems impacted your course, and what steps you have taken to prevent this from happening in the future, in addition to whether you are still suitable to go into the profession.

Normally you would then leave the room while the committee discusses your case and you are brought back in for the decision. If it is online you may be called back or written to with the decision.

The committee will decide whether to allow you to continue on the course, including repeating the year if you have failed, or withdraw you from your studies. They may put certain requirements in place if you are allowed to continue and they may reconvene later in the year to review whether you are meeting those requirements.

Potential outcomes include:

• No further action.
• Defer the decision while waiting for further information or evidence.
• Allowed to continue with your course, with written advice and guidance.
• Allowed to continue with your course, with a written warning.
• Allowed to continue with your course under increased supervision.
• Required to repeat a period of study.
• Required to take a Leave of Absence.
• A referral to the Fitness to Practise Committee on the grounds of health and/or conduct - see our Fitness to Practise page for more information. In addition, where appropriate the Committee can apply the outcomes available to a Health and Conduct Committee.
• Withdrawn from the University either because of academic failure, failure to comply with the course and regulations, or failure to comply with requirements from a previous Committee.   

In some circumstances, you may be able to appeal the decision. You will only be able to do this if you can satisfy one, or both, of the following grounds:

i) procedural irregularity in the conduct of the case;
ii) evidence which could not have been presented at the time of the original hearing.

More information on appealing can be found on the University website. Remember that there is a deadline of 10 calendar days to appeal and you must use the official appeal form.

If you would like to appeal or need some more information contact us at ASK and we will guide you through the process.

The GMC require certain Progress Committee attendances to be reported to them by both the School and the student when applying for provisional registration. You will be advised if this applies to you.

You are advised to keep copies of all your Committee paperwork in case the GMC asks for more information when considering registration.