Course description

Doctors are witness to the most joyful and difficult moments of people’s lives. It’s no wonder they have such meaningful and rewarding careers. We are looking to attract high-achieving, aspirational students, from all backgrounds, who display a caring attitude and values consistent with those of the NHS constitution. We aim to help you become skilled, professional and caring doctors prepared to make patient care your first priority.

2025 will mark our 50th anniversary, so we have plenty of experience of medical education at Leicester, which means that you will benefit from excellent training within an established, supportive community. Throughout the course, you will learn from expert academics and medical practitioners working day-to-day in the NHS. Their teaching is directly influenced by their expertise in a wide range of clinical disciplines, and in such diverse fields as heart disease, cancer and genetics – some of the areas where Leicester's research reputation is truly global. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), Leicester was ranked 2nd in the UK for its world leading research in Clinical Medicine. Equally, our new multi-million pound Centre for Empathic Healthcare reflects our commitment to educating compassionate doctors.

Our course is truly patient-focussed, and enables you to take forward the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that are required to practise medicine effectively and successfully in the modern healthcare environment. You will be prepared for the challenges that we are experiencing today and the inevitable changes in practice that will continue to occur in the future.

We run an integrated curriculum. Teaching and learning is based around patients and their needs. It is not a problem-based learning course, but rather a patient-focused curriculum which is delivered through a mixture of lectures, small group work, cadaveric dissection and clinical teaching. This ensures that you learn the essential science underpinning how the human body operates, whilst learning how things can go wrong through the study of patients.

Your experience will be hands-on - you will work with real patients from the beginning. It's all designed to be clinically relevant - enabling you to acquire the medical knowledge, along with the  professional competencies, that are essential to practise medicine effectively. In your first year, you gain the Health Care Certificate and hospital ward experience that allows you to work as a Healthcare Assistant. Simultaneously, through our Phase 1 Compassionate, Holistic, Diagnostic Detective course you start to develop consultation and examinations skills with actors and patients in our medical school and hospitals, preparing you for Phase 2 (years 3-5) where you will be based full-time in hospital, general practice and community placements.

Our world-class facilities provide a state-of-the art learning environment and allow you to experience what other medical students don’t. For example, we are one of the few courses to offer full-body human dissection. All first year students are provided with iPads. Study material is delivered directly onto these iPads. All the resources you need will be at your fingertips throughout the clincal phase of the course.

You will also have the chance to develop your clinical procedures in our  state-of-the-art Clinical Skills Unit. During the clinical phase of the course, we offer a wide range of hospital and community placements in the region, including Leicester’s big city hospitals, and district centres across the Midlands, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. This means you gain valuable experience in a diverse range of environments.

If you’re interested in medical research and/or enhancing your career prospects, you can take an intercalated degree by undertaking full-time research with experts at Leicester or elsewhere.

Towards the end of the course, there are additional opportunities to take an elective placement in a location of your choice - it could be anywhere in the world. 

National Student Survey results

We are really proud to have some of the most satisfied medical students in the UK. Our outstanding teaching and learning environment was reflected in our National Student Survey (NSS) 2024 results, where we were ranked 1st in the UK in subjects aligned to Medicine for overall positivity. (According to Times Higher Education NSS 2023 methodology applied to the NSS 2024 data.)

We also ranked 1st or 2nd in subjects aligned to Medicine on question themes concerning ‘Student Voice’, ‘Teaching on my Course’, Assessment and Feedback’, ‘Learning Opportunities’, and ‘Organisation and Management’.

And as a Medical School, which therefore teaches vocational degrees, we are especially proud of being ranked top in subjects aligned to Medicine on the question “How well has your course developed your knowledge and skills that you think you will need for your future?”

The 2024 NSS comprised 27 core questions covering academic experience, teaching and assessments, and well-being services. It was completed by almost 346,000 final year students in the UK and gives feedback on their university experience. This is a fantastic result and a huge testament to the way staff and students collaborate at Leicester Medical School to make it such a great place to study medicine. However, being a great medical school depends on us not settling for how we are now but also striving to be even better in the future, and we continue to be committed to listening to student feedback, reflecting on our performance and looking for new ways to improve our curriculum.

Application date

Medical degrees have a UCAS application deadline of 15 October, three months ahead of most other courses.

Entry requirements

Related courses

Intercalated degrees

If you’re interested in medical research and/or enhancing your career prospects, you can take an Intercalated Degree - an Intercalated BSc (iBSc) as a one year course after the second or third year of your Medical Degree. Alternatively you can take an Intercalated MSc (iMSc) in Medical Research after your third year. Either of these will extend your overall degree to six years.

You also have the opportunity to intercalate outside Leicester, which significantly broadens the choices available to you.

Healthcare assistant training

We offer all first year students the chance to train and qualify as Health Care Assistants (HCAs). This is a superb and rewarding way of immersing yourself into the clinical/hospital environment from early in your course. The experiences and knowledge you gain from working/training as a HCA will be vital to supporting your learning as you move in to your clinical phase of training (Phase 2), and it can provide you with the required training to gain paid employment as a HCA within the NHS. Our students really value this opportunity in terms of improving ward confidence and working as part of the interprofessional team.

Student Selected Components

Student Selected Components (SSCs) offer you the opportunity to take your learning to an area of personal interest. SSCs complement the core curriculum of the MBChB degree programme by allowing you to choose an area you personally want to study. There is a wide range of SSCs  - some are University-based and topics include medical ethics and law, and a number of languages. Some are clinically-based and offer a new clinical experience or the opportunity to build on a previous clinical experience that you have an interest in. Other SSCs have a project theme, such as a quality improvement project in a clinical setting.

Medical elective

You will have the chance to undertake an elective of your choice – where you can study healthcare in a completely new environment. Many of our students choose to travel and broaden their medical experience in another country.

Activities and outreach

Leicester Medical School has a long history of commitment to a range of outreach programmes that you can get involved in.

• The University-led MedReach programme offers opportunities to engage with local school pupils from backgrounds underrepresented in medical schools to encourage a more diverse medical profession.
• Independent student groups such as Junior Emergency Medicine (JEM), Sexpression, Nutritank, Teddy Bear’s Hospital and Medsin bring key healthcare issues to groups in Leicester and Leicestershire.
• We have a very close relationship with local homeless charities through our Project Light Initiative.

LUSUMA – Student society

It is important to have a good social life and a balanced lifestyle. LUSUMA (Leicester University Students’ Union Medical Association) is run by students and organises a huge variety of social events, sports clubs, academic and medical interest groups, as well as providing support and resources for all medical students at Leicester.

Widening access

Our aim, where possible, is to widen participation at Leicester Medical School from under-represented groups and students whose background may have prevented them from achieving their full potential. We have developed a six year medical degree A199 Medicine with Foundation Year MBChB which offers an alternative route onto the medical degree for talented school leavers who meet, or who have achieved, or are predicted to achieve, BBB at A-level in our required subjects. This course is designed to give the background and support to enable students to flourish and become compassionate and skilled doctors. Additional financial scholarships are available for these students.

Our A100 Medicine MBChB degree also aims to produce compassionate and skilled doctors from all backgrounds. Due to the competitive and demanding nature of the A100 5 year course, we normally make offers to those who are predicted or have achieved A*AA at A-level in the required subjects. However, we may give a reduced offer to those who have completed one of the progression programmes below.

Progression programmes

Progression programmes support students from under-represented groups and those who may have faced barriers to them achieving their full potential throughout Year 12 and Year 13. All of our progression programmes at Leicester are very valuable for enhancing study skills and preparing students for university life and study. At Leicester Medical School we have our own AccessLeicester: Medicine which is supported by staff in the medical school and the wider University.

The University of Leicester also supports and participates in the national Realising Opportunities Programme (ROP), and is a member of the UKWPMED group; which means we recognise progression programmes offered by fellow group members in the same way as our own. Other UKWPMED members are University of Birmingham Route to the Professions Medicine; BSMS BrightMed; HYMS Pathways to Medicine; Keele Steps2Medicine; University of Manchester Access or Preston Widening Access Programmes; and Peninsula Medical School Peninsula Pathways.

Students who have completed these programmes may be considered for an automatic interview (see scoring document for more information) and if considered for an offer will be made a reduced offer for the A100 course may be made (see scoring document for more information). If you are interested in finding out more about our progression programmes or other outreach activities, please email schools@le.ac.uk.

Please note that there is no guaranteed interview nor alternative offer available for A199 Medicine with Foundation Year.

Contextual data

When selecting for interview for our A100 5 year course, we score applications on academic qualifications and UCAT (see our scoring document). The top scoring applicants are invited to interview without regard to their background or the school they attended. For those in the borderline group, all aspects of the application are assessed including the personal statement and reference. We also look for a number of contextual markers (see scoring document). An applicant with two or more contextual markers may be advantaged at this stage over another applicant with the same score and no, or fewer contextual markers. These markers include students in receipt of the UCAT bursary; students who attended a secondary school where the Key Stage 4 (GCSE) performance is lower than the national average (based on Attainment 8); students who live in an area with low participation in higher education (those living in Polar4 quintiles 1 or 2); students in receipt of free school meals; students who will be the first in family to go to higher education.

A similar process occurs following interview, whereby the highest ranking candidates will be given offers without regard to other aspects of their application. For those in the borderline group all aspects of the application will be reviewed, including contextual markers.

Access to HE Diploma courses

For mature candidates (aged 22 years or above) we will consider some QAA Approved Access to Medicine courses (see our entry requirements for further information). We don't accept access courses in lieu of poor science A-levels, but we will consider candidates who are re-entering education from another career or have undertaken non-science A-levels and have fully reconsidered a change in their career path.

Please note those with prior degrees will be scored as graduates.

We do not accept Access to Medicine courses for the Medicine with Foundation Year course.

After your degree

In common with other medical schools, the Leicester MBChB is an unclassified degree. However, students who excel may graduate with the award of Honours, MBChB (Hons). The award of Honours is determined by a student’s performance across all aspects of the degree, with particular weighting on the summative examinations undertaken in final year. Honours are only awarded to the top 10% (first decile rank) of students in any graduating cohort. As such the award of Honours is at least equivalent, and in many cases a greater achievement, than graduating with a first class honours Bachelors degree or gaining a distinction in final year.

Provisional registration with the GMC

At the end of the undergraduate programme you will receive your MBChB degree, which is a primary medical qualification (PMQ). Holding a PMQ entitles you to provisional registration with the General Medical Council, subject only to its acceptance that there are no fitness to practise concerns that need consideration.

Provisional registration is time-limited to a maximum of three years and 30 days (1,125 days in total). After this time period your provisional registration will normally expire.

Foundation Programme

Provisionally registered doctors can only practise in approved Foundation Year 1 posts: the law does not allow provisionally registered doctors to undertake any other type of work.

To obtain a Foundation Year 1 post you will need to apply during the final year of your undergraduate programme through the UK Foundation Programme selection scheme, which allocates these posts to graduates on a competitive basis. All suitably-qualified UK graduates have found a place on the Foundation Year 1 programme, but this cannot be guaranteed - if, for example, one year there were an increased number of competitive applications from non-UK graduates.

Successful completion of the Foundation Year 1 programme is normally achieved within 12 months (if working full-time) and is marked by the award of a Certificate of Experience. You will then be eligible to apply for full registration with the General Medical Council. You need full registration with a licence to practise for unsupervised medical practice in the NHS or private practice in the UK.

Although this information is currently correct, please be aware that regulations in this area may change from time to time.

There is some discussion about whether to remove provisional registration for newly qualified doctors. If this happens then UK graduates will receive full registration as soon as they have successfully completed an MBChB (or equivalent) degree. It should be noted that it is very likely that UK graduates will still need to apply for a training programme similar to the current Foundation Programme and that places on this programme may not be guaranteed for every UK graduate.