Case Summaries

Competence standards - PI021706

Public interest case February 2017 | Not Justified

Queen Mary University of London

A medical student at Queen Mary University of London complained to us after the University turned down her appeal against being deregistered from the course.

The University provided a number of adjustments for the student following a needs assessment. It required her to pass one examination that was based on visual interpretation of x-rays as it considered that "image recognition is a key competency standard for a medical doctors". The student provided medical evidence to her appeal that she may have been disadvantaged by the visual nature of the assessment. However the duty to provide adjustments does not apply to a competence standard.

We decided the complaint was Not Justified. The University was able to demonstrate that it gave sufficient consideration to the student’s circumstances and made adjustments to support her by allowing her extra time. However its professional judgment was that it was not possible to change the format of the assessment as it was intended to assess visual processing.