University acts to avoid exam mistakes

15 February 2010

MEDICAL students will sit their final exams six weeks early at Cardiff University after four people were wrongly told last year they had qualified.

The four had to stop working in Welsh hospitals when the error came to light and they are now repeating their final year. A fifth student who was told they had failed was found to have passed the five-year course.

The university blamed the mistakes on errors in compiling data which led to the wrong results being attributed to 137 students. There was no formal system for checking data before it was presented to the exam board.

Cardiff University has said it is now implementing a series of “robust” measures following an investigation. The new procedures will affect all final year medical students at the university. Students will sit their exams in May, allowing the university double the amount of time to check results.

The university has also created two new positions in the School of Medicine to oversee the implementation of new data control procedures. Professor Paul Morgan, Dean of Medicine, said: “All we can do is put in the best systems that are available – it is impossible for us to say that a mistake will never be made again. I’m satisfied about where we are now and where we will be at the next set of assessments.”

The four medical students who were mistakenly told they had qualified worked for 10 days last summer before the error was discovered. None of them had reportedly made any significant decisions about individual patients’ care.