Non-academic offer requirements
Health Screening
All accepted candidates will be required to complete health declaration and immunisation forms, and some will be contacted by an Occupational Health Physician where appropriate. If you accept our offer, you must submit the completed forms by the deadline stated in the offer.
Health Questionnaire and immunisation forms
While it is not mandatory, we would encourage all applicants to be vaccinated against Covid-19 for their own protection and that of colleagues and patients.
The UK Government Health Authorities advise that all medical students are screened to identify possible carriers of the hepatitis B virus. As soon as you have accepted your offer, you are advised to:
- undertake a screening blood test for Hepatitis B
- if negative, start a course of immunisation
- thereafter provide certified evidence of these
Failure to complete the required vaccinations may affect attendance on placement.
The MBChB Course at Birmingham will offer students the opportunity to engage in Exposure-Prone Procedures (EPPs) whilst on clinical placement (see EPP section below). Students who want to participate in EPPs will be required to undertake additional screening as described below. This screening will be offered after admission and is separate to our standard health and immunisation checks that take place during our admissions process.
For further information about these requirements, please see: Medical and Dental Students: Health clearance for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV and Tuberculosis.
The College of Medical and Dental Sciences will reimburse students with financial hardship up to £200 of the cost of their vaccinations if they meet the eligibility criteria for a Chamberlain Award from the University of Birmingham. If this applies, you are advised to obtain receipts for any health checks that you have had to pay for and then once you commence the MBChB course at the University of Birmingham, you may then apply for reimbursement from the College, up to the cost of £200.
Exposure Prone Procedures (EPPs)
Exposure-Prone procedures (EPPs) are invasive procedures (often involving sharp instruments, needle tips or sharp bone) where there is a risk that injury to the worker may result in the exposure of the patient’s open tissues to the blood of the worker (also known as ‘bleed-back’). The concern with EPPs is the transmission of blood-borne viruses (BBVs). It is important to note that most clinical procedures are not EPPs.
Students who wish to participate in EPPs will be required to undertake additional screening once they are a student here. We believe that it offers an additional valuable learning experience for students, though undertaking EPPs is not a required course component. This screening will be offered after admission and is separate to our standard health and immunisation checks that take place during our admissions process.
Birmingham Medical School will offer students the occasional opportunity to engage in Exposure-Prone Procedures (EPPs) whilst on clinical placement.
The opportunity for performing EPPs is entirely dependent upon a student agreeing to undertake screening for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV. A student must be confirmed as BBV negative (or meet certain stringent conditions if they are found to be BBV positive) in order to be allowed to undertake EPPs. Please note that this EPP status is additional to the standard clearance process that all applicants who are made an offer are asked to engage with at the time of admission. The standard process includes advice on vaccination for Hepatitis B.
Should you decline EPP testing or the screening for BBVs results in you being unable to undertake EPPs, please be assured that there will be no detrimental impact upon your progression and your ability to graduate and meet the GMC Outcomes for Graduates. However, please note that if this is the case, you will be restricted in the clinical work you are permitted to undertake. Our EPP Policy document can be found here.
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check and the Excluded Students Database (ESD)
Students will be required to complete a successful Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check before admission to the course.
You will receive an email from our central admissions team regarding DBS checks approximately 2-3 weeks after you have firmly accepted your place on the course. This email will contain further instructions, next steps and advise of the deadline for submitting your DBS application. Please be sure to check your junk/spam folders for this email before contacting us.
For further information, please see our dedicated webpage about the DBS and ESD Panel Process within the College of Medicine and Health.
If you have been excluded from school, please see our guidance for applicants on the ESD.
If you are an international applicant, you will instead be required to undertake a police check.
Fitness to Practise
As a student on the MBChB programme you will be expected to meet specified standards of behaviour relating to fitness to practise set by the General Medical Council (GMC) and described in two documents:
The university publishes regulations and codes of practice that relate to Fitness to Practise status. In order to clarify what this means in terms of our expectations regarding behaviour of a medicine student on the MBChB course, we ask all students to sign, each year of their study, a Code of Conduct document. This document is reviewed on a regular basis.
Re-marks
The academic requirements for entry will be detailed in the offer made to you (e.g. A Level grades, degree result etc). Please be aware that the latest that we can accept academic results is normally, August 31st of the admissions cycle in which you apply.
If your results do not meet our requirements and you are not accepted but you challenge the result you achieved (for example, you ask for a re-mark for one of your A Level subjects), we are obliged to accept you if you then meet the exact terms of your offer and this result is received by us by August 31st. If possible, we will accept you for entry the same year but if there are no places available by the time your re-mark is confirmed, we will offer you a place for entry the following year. We are not obliged to accept you for the same year of entry if the course is full.
Preparing for the course
There is no list of things you need to go out and buy. As you progress through the course you will decide for yourself what you need to purchase and what is not necessary.
The course does not recommend what books students should purchase. One student may feel that the library and online material provides sufficient support for a topic area, but another student may prefer to buy their own printed textbook (of their choosing from a recommended list of texts you will be given at the beginning of the programme). Therefore, there are many decisions leading to one student's purchases being very different from another. In terms of equipment, one recommended purchase is a stethoscope. A student may feel the need to buy an ophthalmoscope, though these would be available on clinical placement. A recommended list of books and equipment will be provided before the start of the programme. We do not recommend purchasing any equipment before you arrive.
If you would like to prepare with some reading in the summer before you start your course, we recommend that you recap what you have learnt in your recent Biology and Chemistry studies.