As many will now be aware, there were a few problems with the March 2025 NCCQ examination. There were several errors in the case study section of the Practical paper and a couple on the Theory paper. We thought it was important to inform you all of what happened, and the subsequent actions taken.
The papers were subject to the normal punctilious quality assurance and were signed off as accurate by the QA Board. However, it was during the loading onto the platform that the errors occurred when the questions from the previous exam were not completely deleted and a paragraph was left at the end of four of the seven case studies. This had not been picked up on the final check. As all the candidates had been given access to the previous exam as a practice paper many of them recognised these final paragraphs and were able to ignore them however some did not, and the extraneous wording obviously caused confusion. We have apologised without reservation for this.
When we realised there was a problem, we immediately put a message on the platform. However, we did not appreciate that some firewalls would block pop-up messages so not all candidates were kept informed during the exam.
After the exam, we conducted a detailed fact finding investigation as to how these errors had occurred, how to avoid something like this happening again and finally the best course of action to ensure no-one was disadvantaged by these errors.
- It was decided that in the future there would be a further final check made by an experienced coder/auditor who had not been involved in the process so would not have seen the papers and would be able to provide an independent review.
- Process documents have been amended to clarify the steps needed to ensure the transposition to the digital platform is completed accurately and the final check is made without interruption.
- It was decided to award full marks to all candidates for the affected questions. This was approved by the External Examiner as in line with current academic practice, and also by the QA Board to ensure that no candidate was disadvantaged.
- If we have a problem with an exam in the future we will email invigilators rather than depend on the pop-up message system.
- Any candidate that did not achieve a pass in either or both the Practical or the Theory paper has been offered free registration to the September 2025
This last point was not an easy decision to make as IHRIM is dependent on the fees from its exams to continue to maintain the services we provide.
The Institute is a not for profit organisation. We do not have shareholders or owners. All the IHRIM Board and the Associates are either currently, or up until recently were, working full time in the NHS. The work we do for IHRIM is in our own time and we are paid a small sum in recompense. We are prepared to work like this because we passionately believe in supporting all NHS Health Informatics professionals. By offering our services and expertise for nominal payment we can keep the cost of our qualifications down to relatively low fees. The two leads that support the NCCQ are full-time NHS Clinical Coding Managers so you can appreciate the pressure they work under during their day job. The errors were made because the person concerned was loading the papers late in the evening after a long day and the checking process was not completed adequately. Obviously, we have included in our process review that this is not how it will be done in the future.
This is the first time in 27 years of providing this qualification that we have had such an extreme situation occur. We were all obviously very distressed by it and everyone involved in the facilitation of the exam but particularly the Associate Directors (Clinical Coding) are devastated. We in no way took this lightly and have spent considerable time responding to all complainants.
I hope this clarifies IHRIM’s position and can assure you of our continued good faith and hard work in support of all NHS HI professions.