Lincoln Medical School Independence Project

We intend to offer two Medicine programmes: Medicine MBChB (5 years of study) and Medicine MBChB with a Gateway Year (6 years of study, including an integrated year 0 — this will only be open to students from widening participation backgrounds).

The last year of entry for the programmes under our partnership with University of Nottingham will be the 2024/25 academic year for Foundation Year (A18L), and 2025/26 academic year for BMBS Medicine (A10L).

Subject to agreement with the Office for Students, for 2026 entry we will have 80 places available on our Medicine MBChB programme and 20 places available on our Medicine MBChB with a Gateway year programme.

As a current student you are registered at the University of Nottingham. Lincoln Medical School independence will not affect your programme of study as the two universities in the partnership will work together to ensure that you can graduate with BMedSci and BMBS (University of Nottingham).

If you are successful in gaining a place at Lincoln Medical School to start in September 2024, you will be registered at the University of Nottingham. Lincoln Medical School independence will not affect your programme of study as the two universities in the partnership will work together to ensure that you can graduate with BMedSci and BMBS (University of Nottingham).

Please be aware that we will not be offering the A18L Medicine with a Foundation Year programme for 2025 entry. If you are successful in gaining a place at Lincoln Medical School on the A10L Medicine programme to start in September 2025, you will be registered at the University of Nottingham. Lincoln Medical School independence will not affect your programme of study as the two universities in the partnership will work together to ensure that you can graduate with BMedSci and BMBS (University of Nottingham).

Lincoln Medical School was established in 2018 as a partnership between the two universities, with the stated aim of the University of Lincoln taking over as the degree awarding body in due course. Our first students, admitted in September 2019, are due to graduate with their medical degrees in July 2024; this milestone is a proof of principle that medical students can successfully undertake all of their undergraduate training in Lincolnshire and so the path to independence is now clear.

Whilst there will be some differences in the content of year 0 in the new programme, the change is mostly semantic. Changing the title to ‘with a Gateway Year’ avoids confusion between this programme and the University of Lincoln’s Science Foundation Year, Foundation degrees (which medical schools do not offer) and the United Kingdom Foundation Programme for graduating doctors (FY1/FY2).

All UK universities that have the power to award Medicine degrees (primary medical qualifications) must be accredited by the General Medical Council (GMC), which sets the standards for undergraduate medical education in the UK.

All new medical schools are on an accreditation journey, and the GMC do not provide full accreditation until the first cohort of students are in their final year of study. All new schools are therefore required to have a ‘contingency’ school who can award their medical degree in the unlikely event that something goes wrong.

In our case, the contingency school will be the University of Nottingham. Full accreditation means that graduates can gain provisional registration with the GMC and a licence to practise medicine in the UK; full registration of UK medical graduates with the GMC is only possible after successful completion of the first year of the UK Foundation Programme (FY1).

Technically, yes. However, this is no different to the situation in all new medical schools, and the University of Nottingham will be ready to award the degree if required.

Full university approval of our curriculum will not be in place until summer 2024, but our current plans are for an integrated, systems-based and case-based curriculum that takes place over three phases.

All teaching and learning will be mapped to the General Medical Council’s Outcomes for Graduates and List of Practical Skills and Procedures, and the Medical Licensing Assessment Content Map. Phase one will represent the early years of study (years 0-2) and will aim to provide students with a solid base of biomedical, psychosocial, and professional skills to enable them to make a success of the remainder of their studies, and will include some clinical placement in GP practices and hospitals.

Phase two will represent the transition to full-time clinical placements and introduce students to the practice of medicine, surgery, primary care, psychiatry, child health, women’s health, and other specialties over years three and four. Placements will be complemented by simulation in both the clinical and the university environment.

Phase three will be the final year of study, where students can reinforce their knowledge of the principles and practice of medicine and develop from being ‘proto-professionals’ to the successful medical graduates and practitioners of the future. 

Full university approval of our admissions criteria will not be in place until spring 2025. However, we are unlikely to change significantly from the current admissions criteria for A10L (in the case of Medicine MBChB) or A18L (in the case of Medicine with a Gateway Year MBChB). Please see our website course pages for full details.