The Blueprint: Clinical Experience Groups
The RCGP uses a "blueprint" to ensure each exam covers a representative spread of clinical areas. Cases are mapped to seven clinical experience groups, which use the same names as the groups in your WPBA portfolio — so they will be familiar. The RCGP is explicit: this list does not represent a ranking of importance, and candidates should prepare equally for all groups.
- Patients under 19 years old
- Gender, reproductive and sexual health (including women's, men's, LGBTQ+, gynaecology and breast)
- Long-term conditions (including cancer, multi-morbidity, and disability)
- Older adults (including frailty and people at the end of life)
- Mental health (including addiction, smoking, alcohol, substance misuse)
- Urgent and unscheduled care
- Health disadvantage and vulnerabilities (including veterans, mental capacity, safeguarding, and communication difficulties)
In addition, cross-cutting themes can appear across any group and are not confined to a single category. These include: prescribing, result interpretation, health promotion and prevention, ethics and medico-legal issues, and third-party consultations (with carers, relatives, or colleagues).
Each 12-case exam will sample from across the blueprint, but you cannot predict which groups will appear on your exam day. The RCGP draws cases from a bank of hundreds, all mapped to the GP curriculum. No two exam sittings are the same.
| ⭐ KEY POINT: Cases reflect real UK general practice, based on real patient consultations and designed to reflect the prevalence of conditions seen in primary care. Some cases may cover areas you haven't encountered in your own surgery — but the exam is testing your transferable consultation skills, not niche specialist knowledge. If you can gather data systematically, reason through uncertainty, and communicate a safe plan, you can handle any case. |
| 💡 PRACTISE BY BLUEPRINT: SimsBuddy's SCA case bank lets you filter cases by each clinical experience group, focus on the areas you feel weakest in, or mix and match across groups to simulate a realistic 12-case exam circuit. |