I sat the FRCPath Part 1 Haematology examination yesterday. During my preparation I was frustrated by the limited information available. This is to a certain extent expected given how few people actually sit the exam each year. There is information out there - but the sources are obviously biased (trying to sell you access to their question bank) or are articles about international recruitment to NHS speciality training pathways.
I will not reveal any sensitive information about the exam I sat. I will split this article into two parts - my preparation and also the exam logistics itself. This article will focus on the exam logistics.
The decision to sit FRCPath Part 1 is typically made ~6 months in advance. The exam must be passed by the end of ST5. The advised time to do it is as early as possible, to allow for resits.
Timeline of RCPath dates for the Spring 2026 Part 1 Examination:
- Applications opened Friday 28th November 2025 (closed Friday 2nd Jan 2026)
- Stated examination period 23rd of March to 1st of May
- Exam date announced as 25th March 2026 during approximately the first week of February
- Email sent out during the first week of Feburary asking for adjustments/special requirements
- Results expected week of 22nd May 2026
Now that's unhelpful to not know when the exam actually was. Conventional wisdom that was told to me by colleagues is that Part 1 for haem is usually the first week of the examination window, typically on the Weds/Thursday. That turned out to be true in my case.
There is a requirement that your clinical supervisor completes a sponsorship form in order for you to be eligible to sit the examination. Therefore, don't leave the exam application to the end of the application window otherwise you may struggle with time/AL - particularly around Christmas for Spring cycles. You should apply early in the window. I was not really expecting this.
My exam was held in person at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester. I stayed overnight - would recommend for lack of stress reasons. I parked across the road at the Citipark for £22 for 24 hours. If your car is big I would suggest you found alternative parking, it's pretty tight.
Exam day:
Exam day was well run all things considered. I arrived at the venue at the stated time of 30 minutes before my exam started. Extra time candidates had already started, so they had arrived early. The venue was in the meeting rooms at the back of the restaurant in the hotel. I asked at the hotel reception where to go, and was directed to the Victoria Rooms (the meeting rooms as mentioned). There, I found a haematogone (I assume this is the only sensible word for a plurality of haematology trainees) of what I assume to be haem SpRs waiting outside the room. Unhelpfully there was no signage. At 0915, 15 minutes before my start time we were called into the room.
The room was a large meeting room, with desks set up in a typical exam hall fashion. Water was provided by means of a glass and water jug at each table. There were no extra pencils, but the staff had extra pens. There were no clocks in the room.
We were asked to leave bags and coats at the front of the exam room. We were asked to leave our IDs face up on the desk - these would be checked after the exam started.
On each desk there was an envelope with a sticker with our names and candidate numbers. They were randomly distributed around the examination hall (good fun finding it) although apparently it was alphabetical - I was not convinced. Maybe I just don't know my alphabet or indeed my own name.
There was a projector at the front of the room and this was turned on to reveal a countdown clock (a la onlinestopwatch.com) which was started when the exam began. They informed us when we had 2 hours, 1 hour and 10 minutes remaining.
The first examination of the day was the essay examination. Inside the envelope was a question booklet (a 6 page document with the essay questions) and four separate different coloured answer booklets. The answer booklets had approximately 20 pages of A4 paper inside each one, so you were given ~80 pages in total. You answered each essay question in a different booklet. At the end you tie all the booklets together with a treasury tag.
At the end of the morning examination lunch was provided in the form of sandwiches.
For the afternoon MCQ paper the envelope contained a ~50 page booklet containing all the MCQ questions and a 4 page booklet containing a machine read multiple choice answer booklet (think colour in the box for the answer you think is right).
You could leave either examination early (not in the first 30 minutes or last 10 minutes) and if you needed a bathroom break they would escort you to outside the toilet.
My reflections on the exam day process:
Overall good, can't fault the invigilators who were sensible, funny. I did overhear that they advised one candidate with respect to a question with an error to "leave it blank" which I think is the wrong advice - there's no negative marking, so it's better to choose something even if the question is nullified because if it isn't then you have a 1 in 5 chance of being right anyway
There was a need for a calculator although it was relatively simple math that could be done in your head (subtract two numbers, divide by two, multiply by 100).
The essay paper had questions on the back (!) I nearly missed them and I'm sure some people did because the final essay had a natural "end" to it.
There were a large number of obvious errors in the MCQ paper. Some questions had multiple choices repeated (e.g. two out of five options were for hydroxycarbamide). Multiple EMQs had errors with multiple choice answers (e.g. A). Twenty Five DaysTwenty Six Days). One question had a repeated table tracking FBC results printed twice in the same question. One question gave a partial answer for an aPPT ratio e.g. .4 [?1.4, 0.4?]). I doubt this actually affected any results but it seems like my colleagues did start to second guess what was actually true and if there was another mistake in some of the difficult questions.
For the MCQ paper because you couldn't really change your answer more than once (you could, but it would get messy). I suggest writing your answer on the question booklet and once you are finished (or nearing the end) transcribing it onto the answer paper.
Hope this is useful. Will post about how I actually prepared for it at some point in the future