Two OSCE test centres have closed this year

If you sat your OSCE at Oxford Brookes University or at Northumbria University, or you were planning to, the arrangements have changed and the change is easy to miss. The Northumbria centre closed on 19 February 2026. The Oxford Brookes centre closed on 31 July 2026. Neither is taking candidates.

That leaves three providers approved to run the OSCE: the University of Northampton, Ulster University, and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. If you are booking a first attempt, those are your options.

The part that matters most is what happens if you already have an attempt behind you at one of the closed centres. The usual rule is that a resit is booked at the centre where you sat the first time, which is one of the practical reasons the choice of centre is worth thinking about before you book anything. That rule cannot apply to a centre that no longer exists, so candidates in this position choose instead. You email the provider you would rather move to, putting either Oxford Brookes University Transfer Request or Northumbria University Transfer Request in the subject line, depending on where your earlier attempt was. The centre you choose then becomes your OSCE centre, and a later attempt goes there.

There is a knock-on for anyone booking a first attempt now, and it is easy to miss because it only bites later. Your first sitting sets your centre. If you pass, that never matters. If you do not, the resit is at the same place, and that is a second trip, often at short notice and at your own cost. So choose on travel as well as on the earliest available date. The centre with a slot next week is not the better choice if it is the one you would struggle to get back to.

There is a smaller case worth knowing about. If you passed at one of the closed centres and your identity check was never finished, you can complete it at one of the remaining centres rather than being stuck with a pass you cannot use.

Nothing else about the exam has moved. You still get three attempts within one application, you still wait at least ten days between sittings, and the centre still emails your result within five working days of the day you sat it. If you use all three attempts, you start a new application and wait at least six months before sitting again. The stations, the marking and what a resit costs are all as they were.

Two practical points. The first is travel. If your plan involved getting to Oxford or to Newcastle, it needs redoing, and it is worth sorting out before you book flights or give notice on anything. The second is that this post will age. Centres have opened and closed more than once, and the NMC's own OSCE page is the thing that is current. Check it before you make arrangements, and treat any site listing centres, including this one, as something written on a particular day.