Watch an NMC OSCE station being marked
Written and checked against the NMC’s published sources by The NMCMATE editorial team.Last checked .
This is what a station looks like in the simulator. You type to the patient, the patient answers, and at the end you get a report marked against the criteria for that station. Below are two recorded attempts at the same station, played back at the speed they happened. One candidate passes. The other is perfectly pleasant and does not.
The station
Assessment: an unwitnessed fall
Mrs Aisha Rahman, 68, was admitted to an acute medical ward this morning after an unwitnessed fall at home. You are the nurse carrying out her initial assessment. Her observations are on the chart at the end of the bed.
Observations on the chart
- Respiration rate 22
- SpO2 94 per cent on air
- Blood pressure 104 over 62
- Pulse 112
- Temperature 38.1
- Alert
The candidate introduces herself, checks who she is speaking to, asks the questions the grid is looking for, and acts on the observations rather than only reading them.
An attempt that passes about 38 seconds
Hello, my name is Priya and I am one of the nurses on the ward today. Are you Aisha Rahman?
Yes, that is me. Sorry, I am a bit muddled this morning.
That is alright. Can I just check your wristband against your notes? And would it be alright if I asked you some questions about what happened and had a look at your observations?
Yes, go ahead. The band says Aisha Rahman, and my date of birth is the fourteenth of March, nineteen fifty eight.
Thank you. Can you tell me what happened at home?
I got up in the night for the toilet and the next thing I knew I was on the floor in the hallway. I do not remember going down. I was there a while before my son found me.
That must have been frightening. Are you in any pain at the moment, and if you had to put it out of ten where would you say it is?
My left hip aches, maybe a four. It is worse if I try to turn over. I feel hot and a bit shivery too, if I am honest.
Thank you for telling me. Do you have any allergies to any medicines?
Penicillin. It brings me out in a rash.
I will make sure that is on your chart. I can see your temperature is thirty eight point one, your pulse is a hundred and twelve and your blood pressure is a little lower than I would like at a hundred and four over sixty two. Your breathing is up as well. Given you are shivery and those numbers together, I am going to ask the doctor to come and see you now rather than wait.
Is something wrong?
Your observations suggest you may be fighting an infection, and I would rather someone looked at you sooner than later. I am going to escalate this, stay with you while I do, and come straight back and tell you what they say.
Thank you. That is the end of the station.
Simulated verdict
Passed
9 of 10 criteria met.
The criteria grid
- Introduces themselves by name and role metessential
- Confirms the patient’s identity against her wristband metessential
- Gains consent before beginning the assessment metessential
- Asks about pain and establishes its severity metessential
- Checks for allergies metessential
- Reviews a full set of observations metessential
- Recognises the abnormal observations and escalates them metessential
- Asks about the circumstances of the fall met
- Asks about mobility and home circumstances not met
- Explains what will happen next met
Every essential criterion is met, so the station passes. Note that one criterion is not met, asking about mobility and home circumstances, and the attempt still passes: the rule is every essential criterion, not every criterion.
Our simulator covers assessment-style stations from the 10: you hold the conversation with a simulated patient by typing, and are marked against criteria we wrote ourselves. The four clinical skills stations are performed on manikins and equipment and are not simulated here. The result is a simulated verdict, not a prediction of how an NMC assessor would mark you.
Sit one yourself
The station you just watched was recorded. A live one responds to whatever you actually type, and marks what you actually did.
The patient you speak to is never shown the marking criteria, so it cannot lead you to them: you have to elicit what matters yourself, which is the thing a station is testing. The scenario follows the assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation structure the exam is built on. In our marking a red flag fails the station on its own rather than being averaged away, and the verdict is worked out from the individual judgements by a fixed rule rather than written by the model that marked them.