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PLAB 2 explained: the OSCE, Manchester and the visitor visa
The Core Revision Team
Written with the IMG Hub · 10 min read
Published 11 July 2026 · Checked against sources current at 28 September 2026
PLAB 2 is where the exam stops being about what you would circle on paper and starts being about what you would do in the room: sixteen stations, eight minutes each, real actors, real equipment, in one of two GMC assessment centres in Manchester. This guide covers the format, how you are marked, the booking and visa mechanics of getting there from abroad, and the myths worth clearing out before you start preparing.
Core Lens
PLAB 2 in six points
- Sixteen stations, about three hours. PLAB 2 is an OSCE of 16 eight-minute scenarios, sat at one of two Manchester centres: 3 Hardman Square or 3 Hardman Street.
- Three domains, every station. Each station is marked on data gathering, technical and assessment skills, on clinical management, and on interpersonal skills, so communication scores in practical stations too.
- Two conditions to pass. You need the overall pass mark, set by borderline regression plus one standard error of measurement, and a minimum number of stations that the GMC does not publish.
- Getting there. The fee is £1,036 from April 2026, and a Standard Visitor visa, with a GMC letter confirming your test registration, covers the trip from abroad.
- Two clocks around it. Once you have sat PLAB 1, you have two years to pass PLAB 2, and registration should then be approved within two years of the pass.
- For the exam. Rehearse stations aloud, run practical skills as whole consultations against the clock, and score each practice station on the three domains separately.
Figures checked against the GMC’s own pages and GOV.UK on 28 September 2026; the Deep Dive has the detail and the sources.
You are reading the Core Lens — the points that matter. Open the Deep Dive for the full article.
Sitting PLAB 1? Try twenty questions free.
Twenty original PLAB 1 questions, two from each of the ten clinical areas, with the reasoning after every one and a marked report. Free, no card and the first five are open to all.
As ever, this is checked against the GMC’s PLAB 2 guide and GOV.UK visa guidance as of 28 September 2026 — but confirm the current rules on gmc-uk.org and GOV.UK when you book, because they move.
What PLAB 2 actually is
PLAB 2 is a Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA) — an OSCE of 16 scenarios, 8 minutes each, with 1 minute 30 seconds between stations to move and read the next instructions. The whole circuit takes around three hours and includes at least two rest stations. Like PLAB 1, it is pitched at the level of a doctor entering F2, and the stations are built on the MLA content map — the same framework behind the written paper.
Most stations use simulated patients — trained actors — while some use manikins or equipment. Practical skills that may appear include venepuncture, cannulation, CPR, suturing, ECG interpretation and urinary catheterisation. Every station is observed by an examiner, whether in person, by phone or by remote camera: there is no station where nobody is watching, which is worth internalising early, because it means every minute of every encounter is scoreable — including the ones where your hands are busy and your instinct is to go quiet.
The character being examined, as with the written paper, is a doctor about to start F2 in a UK hospital: someone who gathers information sensibly, manages safely to current UK practice, and communicates like a colleague patients can trust. You are not being asked to perform specialist brilliance in eight minutes; you are being asked to be reliably, observably safe sixteen times in a row.
- Format
- 16 stations · 8 minutes each · 1 min 30 sec between stations · around 3 hours · at least two rest stations.
- Where
- Two GMC Clinical Assessment Centres, both in Manchester — 3 Hardman Square (M3 3EB) and 3 Hardman Street (M3 3AW).
- Fee
- £1,036 (from 1 April 2026; it was £998 in 2025/26).
- Marking
- Three domains in every station; pass mark set by borderline regression plus one SEM, and you must also pass a minimum number of stations.
- Results
- Within a month of the exam, via GMC Online.
- Then
- Your registration application should be approved within 2 years of the pass.
A roughly three-hour, sixteen-station OSCE in Manchester, marked on data gathering, clinical management and interpersonal skills in every room. It runs year-round, costs £1,036, and a Standard Visitor visa covers the trip. Results arrive within a month — and the exam must be passed within two years of the date you sat PLAB 1.
How you are marked: three domains, every station
Each station is scored across the same three domains: data gathering, technical and assessment skills; clinical management skills; and interpersonal skills. Read that third one again, because it is the strategic heart of the exam: how you communicate is formally marked in every single station, not just in the obviously “communication” ones. A technically flawless station delivered coldly, or without involving the patient, leaks marks in a domain many candidates forget is on the sheet.
The pass mark is set by borderline regression. In plain words: examiners score your performance and also give each candidate a global judgement, the statistics use the borderline performances to fix a cut score for every station, and the overall pass mark is the sum of those station cut scores plus one standard error of measurement as a safety margin. To pass, you must both meet the overall pass mark and pass a minimum number of stations.
You will hear, with great confidence, that you need to pass 10 of the 16 stations. The GMC does not publish the minimum number of stations in your results (it says candidates can ask) — anyone quoting a figure is guessing. The only strategy that survives contact with the real rules is the obvious one: prepare to pass every station, and let none of them go cheaply on the interpersonal domain.
Booking, Manchester, and a tale of two Hardmans
Unlike part 1, PLAB 2 runs throughout the year with no fixed public calendar: dates become visible in your GMC Online account once you hold a PLAB 1 pass, and waits are possible when demand is high. That wait matters more than it first appears, because the two-year clock towards a PLAB 2 pass started the day you sat PLAB 1 — check what is actually available in GMC Online before assuming you can sit whenever suits you. There is a priority route (via plab@gmc-uk.org) for candidates with a UK job offer in the NHS that requires registration, and for those with UK refugee status.
Every sitting happens in Manchester, at one of two GMC Clinical Assessment Centres — and here is a trap the GMC itself warns about: the addresses are 3 Hardman Square (M3 3EB) and 3 Hardman Street (M3 3AW), and they look nearly identical. Check your booking confirmation carefully, and check it again the night before. Arriving at the wrong Hardman is an avoidable way to have a very bad morning.
The fee is £1,036 from 1 April 2026, and the cancellation ladder is steep: cancel more than 42 days out and you lose £103.60; 42 to 29 days before, £518; with 28 days or fewer to go, the full £1,036. Between the fee, flights and a Manchester stay, part 2 is comfortably the biggest single line in the journey — the true-cost guide itemises the lot.
The visitor visa, if you are coming from abroad
Per GOV.UK, a Standard Visitor visa covers travelling to the UK to sit PLAB 2 — you will need a letter from the GMC confirming your test registration, so build the visa application into your booking timeline rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Two follow-on rules are worth knowing before you book flights, because they change how you should think about the trip. If you fail, you may extend your stay by up to a further six months to retake the exam — which means a resit does not automatically mean a second intercontinental journey, provided you have the means to stay. If you pass, you can apply to stay for up to 18 months in total to do an unpaid clinical attachment — unpaid being the operative word, but for some candidates a spell of structured NHS exposure while the registration paperwork progresses is worth the cost, and it makes the eventual first job less of a cold start. Check the current GOV.UK guidance before travelling; visa rules change with little ceremony.
Results, and the clocks around the exam
Results arrive within a month of the exam, via GMC Online. Two timers frame your sitting. Behind you: PLAB 2 must be passed within two years of the date you sat PLAB 1 — not the date of your result — so late-window candidates have limited room for a resit; the attempts and clocks guide covers how to plan for that. Ahead of you: once you pass, your registration application should be approved within two years — the GMC’s wording is approved, not merely submitted — after which additional evidence of knowledge and skills is needed. What happens after PLAB 2 takes you through registration and the first NHS job step by step.
How to prepare: three principles
Preparation for PLAB 2 is a different animal from the written paper. PLAB 1 could be studied alone with a question bank; PLAB 2 is a live performance assessed in three domains at once, and it rewards rehearsal the way the written paper rewards retrieval. The three principles below follow directly from how the exam is built — sixteen observed stations, every one of them marking your communication alongside your medicine.
Interpersonal skills are a third of every station
Interpersonal skills are not one station’s theme; they are a marked domain in all sixteen. The candidates who underperform relative to their knowledge are usually the ones who treated communication as garnish. Introductions, consent, involving the patient in the plan, checking understanding, safety-netting — these score in a manikin station just as they do in a counselling one.
The practical skills are a known list — drill them
Venepuncture, cannulation, CPR, suturing, ECG interpretation, urinary catheterisation: the GMC tells you the kinds of practical skills that may appear. Remember too that scenarios assume UK-standard equipment, which may differ from what your hands are used to — and that talking to the patient (or the manikin’s “patient”) as you work still feeds the interpersonal domain.
Eight minutes rewards structure
The stations are built on the MLA content map and pitched at F2 level: gather data, manage safely to current UK practice, communicate well. Eight minutes is short, and unstructured brilliance runs out of time. A consistent shape — open, gather, explain, plan together, safety-net — means the marks in all three domains get collected in every room.
PLAB 2 feels like a performance, but it is really a habit inspection: sixteen rooms checking whether safe, warm, structured consulting is your default. Build the habit aloud over weeks, drill the practical skills as whole encounters, and give the interpersonal domain the respect the mark scheme gives it. And do double-check which Hardman you are booked into.
The consultation is learnable culture
The IMG Hub is our free collection of guides, tools and videos for doctors joining the NHS — the jargon, the phrasebook, the first 90 days, and the exams. PLAB 2 marks interpersonal skills in every station; the hub teaches the culture behind them.
Sources & the small print. GMC PLAB 2 guide and Clinical Assessment Centre pages; GMC PLAB fees page; GOV.UK Standard Visitor visa guidance. General careers information, not immigration or legal advice — always check the GMC’s current PLAB and registration guidance, GMC Online and GOV.UK before acting. Written by the Core Revision team.
