An apology from the College to Primary FRCA MCQ proctored candidates

I am aware that the remotely proctored system through which our Primary FRCA MCQ exam was run yesterday (28 August, 2020) experienced a technical failure which caused significant delay and stress to a large number of our candidates.

For this, I sincerely apologise.

I know the College’s Examinations Team worked quickly with our supplier as soon as the fault was identified to address the situation. That said, I am aware that some candidates’ exams started later than expected and connection and communication issues remained throughout their sessions.

I can only imagine how stressful this was for all candidates who were affected by this.

For those candidates who sat the exam and were affected by this issue, please be assured that we will work swiftly with our supplier to get to the bottom of the issue to ensure technical failures such as this are not repeated.

Seeking your feedback
In order to help candidates affected and to ensure that no one who sat the exam is disadvantaged, I would like to offer the opportunity for candidates to email an appraisal of your experience to exams@rcoa.ac.uk explaining what went wrong, and sharing any specific details you feel we should know about the examination or the proctoring service you encountered.

With this feedback, we will make contact with all candidates who have been impacted by yesterday’s events, and use the outcome of the up-coming investigation to make necessary system and process improvements.

Again, I offer my sincerest apologies to those candidates who have been affected. I will make a further statement next week as our investigation progresses.

Thank you,

Professor Ravi Mahajan
President, Royal College of Anaesthetists