Core Revision
MSRA for Psychiatry: the exam that is your entire CT1 ranking
For Core Psychiatry CT1, the MSRA is not one hurdle among several — in the most recent completed cycle it was the entire selection process. NHS England’s own guidance for 2026 entry stated there would be no face-to-face or online interviews: offers were determined by MSRA rank alone. If psychiatry is your plan for 2027 entry, this one exam is your application. Checked against NHS England’s psychiatry recruitment pages on 29 August 2026.
How psychiatry uses your MSRA score
| Element | How it worked (2026 entry) |
|---|---|
| Interview | None — “there will be no face-to-face or online interviews for this round of recruitment” |
| Ranking | 100% MSRA — offers made in score order |
| Minimum to be appointable | At least 186 (raw) in each of the two papers |
| Tie-breaks | Professional Dilemmas score first, then Clinical Problem Solving |
| Score transfer | Not permitted — you sit the MSRA fresh in the recruitment round you apply in |
Sitting the MSRA? See where you stand.
Try twenty original MSRA questions, ten Professional Dilemmas and ten Clinical Problem Solving, marked on the near-miss principle NHS England describes. Free, no card and the first five are open to all.
Note the tie-break order: when two applicants finish level, the Professional Dilemmas paper decides. Most people under-prepare for PD because it feels unrevisable. For psychiatry applicants that is exactly backwards — it is half your score and the first tie-break.
One application also covers CT1 Core Psychiatry, ST1 Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and ST1 Psychiatry of Learning Disability, so the same MSRA performance serves all three routes.
The exam itself
One computer-based sitting, 170 minutes, two papers, identical for every specialty that uses it:
| Paper | Time | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Professional Dilemmas (sat first) | 95 min | 50 situational judgement questions — ranking and multiple-choice |
| Clinical Problem Solving | 75 min | 86 questions across the breadth of general clinical practice |
The CPS paper is generalist — psychiatry shares one of its twelve topic areas with neurology, so a strong psychiatry CV does not carry the clinical paper. Breadth across acute medicine, paediatrics, O&G and the rest of foundation-level practice is what scores.
Your window: February, and the extra weeks
The MSRA runs in two windows, and the later one belongs to you. In the 2026 cycle the February window (12–25 February) was reserved exclusively for GP and Core Psychiatry applicants, with the January window (6–19 January) covering everyone else. Allocation happens automatically after the application deadline — you cannot choose — and if GP/psychiatry numbers exceed capacity some are reassigned to January. Plan to be exam-ready for January, and treat a February allocation as four to five bonus weeks of consolidation, not a later starting gun.
Dates for 2027 entry
Round 1 applications for 2027 entry run 22 October to 19 November 2026, and the January 2027 MSRA window is published (5–20 January 2027, invitations 14 December 2026). The second sitting for GP and psychiatry applicants is 10–18 February 2027 (invitations expected by 21 December 2026), with results expected from 17 March 2027, per NHS England’s GP recruitment timeline; the core psychiatry timeline page had not been filled in when we checked on 1 October 2026. Our MSRA 2027 dates tracker is updated the day NHS England publishes the new timetable.
A note on competition
Psychiatry drew 10,677 applications for 489 posts in 2025 (21.8 per place). Those figures pre-date the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act, in force since March 2026: NHS England reported that effective competition roughly halved in the 2026 round, with 98% of posts going to priority applicants, and for 2027 prioritisation will apply at both the shortlisting and offer stages. Whatever your status, the mechanism is unchanged — your MSRA rank within your applicant pool is everything.
How to prepare
With no interview and no portfolio in the ranking, every hour of preparation goes to one place:
- 500 original Professional Dilemmas scenarios across the three competencies the paper tests — the paper that is half your score and your first tie-break
- 1,700+ Clinical Problem Solving questions across the CPS topic areas (a core written for the MSRA, the rest Foundation-level clinical questions shared with our AKT bank)
- Full timed mocks of both papers, built to the real timings
- Guideline-linked explanations on every question
Explore the MSRA question bank · Plans & pricing
Prefer to start free? Our open Ethics, Law & Safeguarding guide covers the professional-practice ground the PD paper leans on — no account needed.
Frequently asked questions
Is there really no interview for Core Psychiatry?
In the most recent completed cycle (2026 entry), NHS England confirmed there were no interviews — applicants were ranked and offered posts on MSRA performance alone. Check the 2027 applicant guidance when it publishes, but this has now held for several consecutive cycles.
Is there psychiatry content in the MSRA?
Psychiatry/Neurology is one of the twelve clinical topic areas in the Clinical Problem Solving paper, so it appears — but the exam is deliberately generalist and set at foundation level. A psychiatry-heavy revision plan is the wrong plan.
What score do I need?
You must reach at least 186 (raw) in each paper to be appointable; beyond that there is no fixed pass mark — the score that wins an offer is set by where the field falls each year. The strongest strategy is maximising the Professional Dilemmas paper, which is also the first tie-break.
Related
- The MSRA question bank
- MSRA 2027: dates, format and what is confirmed
- January vs February sitting: who sits when
- MSRA for Radiology
- MSRA for Emergency Medicine
Checked 29 August 2026 against NHS England’s Core Psychiatry recruitment and MSRA pages and 2025 competition-ratio data. Selection processes change between cycles — always verify against the current applicant guidance for your cycle before relying on any figure here.
