Thompsons Solicitors has welcomed a significant change that the Royal College of General Practitioners' (RCGP) has made to its examination attempts policy, marking a step forward in improving fairness for trainee GPs with disabilities.
The revised policy, which comes after a successful legal challenge by Thompsons, allows candidates diagnosed with a disability after unsuccessful attempts at an examination to apply to RCGP to have those attempts voided, if they were taken without appropriate reasonable adjustments.
This update follows a High Court ruling last year following a case brought by a trainee GP, who was supported by the BMA, in relation to the Applied Knowledge Test (AKT), one of the essential components of the MRCGP qualification process.
The ruling, delivered by Mr Justice Garnham in August 2024, declared that the RCGP's previous policy of limiting attempts without consideration of late disability diagnoses was irrational.
The Court found no justification for RCGP allowing disabled candidates who knew of their disability to benefit from reasonable adjustments but saying that it was ‘not possible’ to make equivalent allowance for candidates who discovered their disability after failed attempts at the examination.
The judgment quashed the RCGP's former attempts policy for the AKT and left it to the RCGP to formulate a new examination attempts policy.
The RCGP website has now been updated to reflect this policy change.
Thompsons instructed 39 Essex Chambers’ barristers Jenni Richards KC and Emily Wilsdon to represent the trainee GP.
Rachel Halliday, a partner in the Trade Union Law Group at Thompsons Solicitors who acted for the trainee GP who brought the legal action against the RCGP, welcomed the RCGP’s policy adjustment.
She said: “The judgment handed down by the High Court last year highlighted the need for public bodies to properly consider the duty to make reasonable adjustments for examination candidates when making important decisions about access to a profession. If reasonable adjustments are not made in a fair way, then the profession risks unnecessarily losing good candidates.”
An employment law expert at Thompsons, Rachel added: “We are delighted that the RCGP has changed its policy in relation to examination attempts. We expect that the policy change will make a real difference in ensuring that doctors with neuro-diverse conditions are treated fairly in the assessment process from now on.”
Background:
The hearing in August 2024 related to a trainee GP who had taken and failed the AKT exam three times, following which she was diagnosed as having a neurodiverse cognitive profile.
In light of her diagnosis, she applied for reasonable adjustments for two further attempts and was granted 25% extra time but narrowly missed a pass on both occasions.
An application was submitted to the RCGP to void her three earlier attempts at the exam, taken before her diagnosis and without the reasonable adjustments that she would have been entitled to had she known of her disability.
The RCGP refused this request.
On Tuesday, 27 August 2024, the Court ruled that the fact that the RCGP would not even consider offering further attempts following a late diagnosis of disability or nullifying previous attempts was irrational.
Mr Justice Garnham held that he could think of no justification for an arrangement that allowed disabled candidates who were aware of their disability to benefit from, for example, additional time in which to sit their examinations, while denying equivalent allowances to disabled candidates who discovered their disability after failing the tests.
The Court quashed the policy (as it relates to the AKT examination) as well as its application to the trainee GP’s specific case. At the time, the Court noted that it would be for the RCGP to consider whether, in light of this finding, it wished to amend the policy as it relates to the other GP training examination, the Simulated Consultation Assessment (formerly the Recorded Consultation Assessment).
The trainee GP’s case was supported by the BMA.