Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCP) performance of doctors who passed Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) tests compared with UK medical graduates: national data linkage study

These findings suggest that the PLAB test used for registration of international medical graduates is not generally equivalent to the requirements for UK graduates. The differences in postgraduate performance, as captured at ARCP, following the two routes to registration might be levelled out by raising the standards of English language competency required as well as the pass marks for the two parts of the PLAB test. An alternative might be to introduce a different testing system.