How to give RCEM exam feedback after failing
TL;DR: If you want to give RCEM feedback after a fail or near-fail, you have three real routes, and they do different jobs. For operational issues on exam day (a broken station, a noisy room, a problem with a specific item), email exams@rcem.ac.uk, ideally within 24 hours of sitting. For structural feedback about training and exam experience as a whole, route it through EMTA (Emergency Medicine Trainees Association) at emta@rcem.ac.uk or via the Tell EMTA form. To formally challenge a result, that is a separate process: the appeals route, with a 20-day window and a £250 fee. None of these guarantee a changed mark, but well-written feedback does shape what happens to the next sitting.
Failing an RCEM exam is bruising. If the experience felt unfair — a question you genuinely could not answer because of an image issue, a centre that ran badly, or a station you felt was poorly written — the urge to say something is real and reasonable. The good news is the College does have a feedback inbox and EMTA exists precisely to push trainee concerns upstream. The honest news is that feedback rarely overturns an individual result; that is what the appeals process is for, and it has a high bar. This guide walks through who to write to, when, what to say, and what to expect back.
Is feedback the same as an appeal?
No, and getting this distinction right is the single most important thing on this page. Feedback is informal: you are telling RCEM something they should know about the exam, a station, or your test centre. There is no fee, no formal panel, and no expectation of a personal outcome. An appeal is formal: you are asking RCEM to review your result on specific grounds, within 20 days, with a £250 fee that is only refunded if you win. Appeals can only succeed on two grounds — a procedural irregularity (an administrative or process error that affected your performance) or exceptional circumstances. “I think the question was unfair” is feedback. “The screen froze for nine minutes during my SBA and the centre logged it” is appeal territory. If you are not sure which lane you are in, we cover the appeals route in detail in Appealing an RCEM exam result.
Who do I email at RCEM?
For anything to do with an exam sitting — questions, items, conditions, invigilation, test-centre issues, accessibility, or anything that happened on the day — the inbox is exams@rcem.ac.uk. This is the operational mailbox the College’s exams team works from. It is also the address you use to flag exam-day problems within the 24-hour reporting window, which matters if you later want the option of an appeal on procedural grounds. Even if you do not plan to appeal, the 24-hour rule is a good habit: it creates a written, time-stamped record of what happened, which is far harder to argue with than “I remember it being bad”.
For general College matters that are not specifically about the exam, the main address is rcem@rcem.ac.uk. For the formal appeals route, supporting documentation goes to exampolicy@rcem.ac.uk, but only after you have filed the online appeals form.
What is EMTA’s role?
EMTA is the Emergency Medicine Trainees Association — the representative body for EM trainees in the UK. Every EM trainee is automatically an EMTA member, whether they know it or not. EMTA sits on RCEM committees, runs an annual trainee survey, and feeds aggregated trainee concerns back into College decisions, including those about exams. If a pattern of concerns surfaces (e.g. multiple trainees reporting the same kind of issue with a sitting), EMTA is the body best placed to escalate it as a structural problem rather than a one-off complaint.
You can email EMTA at emta@rcem.ac.uk, or use the Tell EMTA form on their website (emta.co.uk) for confidential reporting. Their committee covers areas like exams, training standards, equality, and wellbeing, so concerns can be routed to the right rep. Be realistic about timelines: EMTA is run by working EM trainees in their own time, so a reply is rarely instant — but they do read what comes in.
When should I send feedback after a sitting?
The single highest-yield window is the first 24 hours after your exam. If something tangible went wrong — an image that would not load, a station with an audio issue, an invigilator who interrupted you, a centre that ran late or hot — write it down and email exams@rcem.ac.uk that day. It does not need to be long. A short factual note, sent same-day, is worth ten paragraphs of frustration sent a fortnight later. It also keeps the door open for an appeal if your result comes back unfavourable.
For broader feedback (the exam felt clinically off, the question bank seemed unrepresentative, the centre booking experience was difficult), you have more time, but sooner is better — memories blur, and feedback received while a diet is still fresh is more useful to RCEM than feedback that lands months later.
What kind of feedback does RCEM actually act on?
RCEM is a regulator-adjacent body sitting examinations that protect patients, so they treat feedback carefully and slowly. In practice they tend to act on:
- Operational issues with a clear record — a centre incident logged by the invigilator, a Surpass technical issue with a session ID, an accessibility arrangement that was not honoured.
- Specific item concerns — a single SBA item where the stem, options, or image had a real problem. The exam board can review individual items, and if a question is judged faulty it can be removed from the mark scheme (this happens, but quietly, and never on a per-candidate basis).
- Patterns across multiple candidates — especially when EMTA or training programme directors raise them. A theme repeated by ten candidates lands very differently from a single email.
They are less likely to act on subjective comments about difficulty, broad accusations of bias without specifics, or anger directed at the result rather than the process. None of that is wrong to feel; it just rarely changes anything if it lands in an inbox in that form.
Should I name a specific question?
Yes, if you can — and as specifically as the exam regulations let you. You signed a non-disclosure undertaking when you sat the exam, so you cannot reproduce question stems verbatim or share them publicly. But within a feedback email to exams@rcem.ac.uk, you can describe the question by topic area, the clinical scenario, and what specifically you felt was problematic (e.g. “the paediatric resuscitation question with the airway image”). The exams team can usually identify which item you mean from that level of detail. Be careful with screenshots and recordings — those breach the candidate agreement and turn a feedback exercise into a misconduct one very quickly.
What about marking and pass marks?
RCEM uses standard-setting (Angoff, modified Angoff, or borderline regression depending on the paper) rather than a fixed percentage pass mark. That means the pass mark is set after the exam by an expert panel, based on how a hypothetical borderline candidate would perform. Feedback along the lines of “the pass mark is too high” rarely lands, because the pass mark is not a policy choice — it is an outcome of the standard-setting process. Feedback about standard-setting itself — e.g. the composition of the panel, transparency of the process — is a legitimate structural concern, and that is the kind of thing EMTA can raise on a trainee’s behalf better than an individual email can.
How do I write feedback that’s actually useful?
The rule of thumb: specific, evidence-based, calm. Specific means a date, a centre, a session ID where you have one, and concrete descriptions. Evidence-based means “the screen logged me out three times between 10:12 and 10:31, the invigilator filled in incident form X” rather than “my computer kept crashing”. Calm means tone — not because RCEM deserves your composure, but because angry emails get filed and forwarded around in a way that strips your actual point out of the conversation.
A good feedback email tends to have four parts: one line of context (which exam, which sitting, which centre), the issue described in factual terms, what impact you believe it had, and what you would like RCEM to consider (review the item, audit the centre, log it for the next standard-setting meeting). Leave out anything that sounds like a threat of legal action — that flips the entire exchange into a different process.
Sample feedback email template
Adapt this to your situation. Keep it shorter than you think it needs to be.
To: exams@rcem.ac.uk
Subject: Candidate feedback — [Exam name], [Date], [Centre]Dear RCEM Exams Team,
I sat the [MRCEM SBA / FRCEM SBA / Primary / OSCE] on [date] at [centre name / RCEM London]. My candidate number is [number].
I would like to give feedback on the following issue: [factual description in 2–4 sentences. Name the item or session segment by topic area where relevant. Note any incident logged on the day and the time].
I believe this affected my performance because [one or two sentences]. I appreciate the exam team cannot discuss individual results, and this email is intended as feedback rather than a formal appeal. I would be grateful if it could be considered alongside any item review or centre audit for this diet.
Thank you for your time.
Kind regards,
[Name]
[GMC number]
[Training region / programme]
flowchart TD
F([Feedback you want to give]) --> A[Exam content or admin
Email exams@rcem.ac.uk]
F --> B[Trainee experience
EMTA representative]
F --> C[Formal complaint or appeal
Appeals process]
A --> R([RCEM responds])
B --> R
C --> R
If your concern is about the broader sitting experience rather than a specific issue, send a parallel copy to emta@rcem.ac.uk with a one-line note that you are sharing it for trainee-rep visibility.
Where each channel fits
Use this as a quick sense-check before you start typing.
| Channel | What it’s for | Typical turnaround | What to include |
|---|---|---|---|
| exams@rcem.ac.uk | Exam-day issues, item concerns, centre or Surpass problems, accessibility | Acknowledgement within working days; substantive reply variable | Candidate number, exam, date, centre, factual description, any incident reference |
| emta@rcem.ac.uk / Tell EMTA | Structural concerns, patterns across candidates, training-level issues | Slower; reps reply when committee bandwidth allows | Same as above plus broader context — what you’ve heard from peers |
| Online appeals form → exampolicy@rcem.ac.uk | Formal challenge to a result on procedural or exceptional-circumstances grounds | Chief Examiner triage, then panel if accepted | Detailed grounds, supporting documents, £250 fee (refunded if successful) |
| rcem@rcem.ac.uk | General College matters not specific to the exam | Routed internally | Brief context and what you want directed where |
What should I do before I press send?
Sleep on it if you can. If you can’t, write it now and schedule it to send tomorrow — most email clients will let you. Read it back as if it were forwarded to your TPD without your consent (because it could be). Strip anything that reads as venting. Keep the facts and the ask.
Also worth doing: check the FRCEM SBA results day what to do if failed guide before you write, because it walks through the immediate emotional and practical decisions of results day — and a lot of feedback that gets sent in the first 48 hours after a fail is feedback the candidate wishes, with hindsight, they had not sent in quite that form.
Can I copy in my TPD or HoS?
You can, and sometimes you should. If the issue is one your Training Programme Director or Head of School should be aware of (because it could affect other trainees in your deanery, or because you may need their support if you go on to appeal), a CC is reasonable. If the issue is purely about a single item and is unlikely to recur, it may not need that level of escalation. Use judgement; you do not have to involve anyone outside the College if you do not want to.
What if RCEM doesn’t reply?
Operational feedback usually gets at least an acknowledgement. If a substantive reply matters to you and a couple of weeks have passed without one, a short, polite follow-up to exams@rcem.ac.uk referencing your original date and candidate number is reasonable. After that, escalating via EMTA is the next step. The College’s complaints process (the “Comments, Compliments, Complaints” route on their main contact page) sits above this, but it is for situations where you feel the exam team have failed to respond appropriately to a legitimate concern, not as a faster alternative to the normal feedback channel.
Does any of this affect my next attempt?
Sending feedback does not penalise you. RCEM does not flag candidates who give feedback; the exams team treats it as part of normal quality assurance. The exception is conduct: if your feedback includes material that breaches the candidate agreement (verbatim questions, recordings, screenshots, or anything that suggests you discussed questions with others post-exam), that opens a different conversation under the Misconduct Policy. Stay on the right side of the agreement and you have nothing to worry about. Many of the small improvements candidates see between diets — clearer image rendering, better centre briefings, smoother Surpass handovers since the January 2026 switchover — happened because earlier candidates sent good feedback.
The honest bottom line
Feedback to RCEM is worth sending. It is not worth treating as a way to get a result changed; that is the appeals process, and the bar is genuinely high. What feedback does do, when it is specific and calm, is make the next sitting marginally better for the trainees behind you. That is a reasonable thing to want, especially on a day when very little else feels in your control.
Authoritative sources
Facts last verified . Sources: RCEM Exams pages, RCEM Appeals & Misconduct policy 2023, EMTA (rcem.ac.uk/emta and emta.co.uk).
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