PLAB 2 and PACES Communication

Two exams, two stages of a career, one skill under the clock. PLAB 2 is for doctors with an acceptable overseas primary medical qualification and a valid PLAB 1 pass who want to join the UK medical register, per the GMC PLAB 2 guide. PACES is the clinical examination of the MRCP(UK) diploma, designed, per the Federation’s PACES page, for trainee doctors who hope to enter higher specialist training (ST3); the same page says you must have passed the Part 1 written exam first. Some doctors sit both, years apart: PLAB 2 to get registered, PACES later in training.

The content differs: per the GMC, PLAB 2 could cover anything a doctor in a Foundation Year 2 post might expect to see, while PACES tests seven clinical skills, from physical examination to communication, per the Federation. The talk does not differ. Both exams reward the same behaviours: explain without jargon, find out what the person thinks and fears, agree a plan together and keep them safe. Every page in this guide is written for both, and says so when a rule belongs to one exam only.

PLAB 2. Per the GMC page on how you will be tested, every scenario is marked on three domains: data gathering, technical and assessment skills; clinical management skills ("formulating a diagnosis, explaining something to the patient, formulating a management plan"); and interpersonal skills: "whether you establish a rapport with the patient, how you use open and closed questioning, involving the patient and demonstrating your professionalism and understanding of ethical principles". The GMC tests interpersonal skills "by observing the interaction between you and another person, usually a simulated patient or occasionally the examiner", in person, in writing or by telephone. Its list includes explaining a diagnosis, investigation and treatment, involving the patient in decisions, talking to relatives and colleagues, breaking bad news, consent, anxious patients or relatives, discharge instructions and lifestyle advice.

There is no fixed pass mark. Each station’s pass score is set by the borderline regression method, and to pass overall you must reach the overall pass mark and also pass a minimum number of stations, per the GMC page on understanding your results. For each station the examiner can mark any of ten pre-set feedback statements, and four of them are about how you run the conversation: Rapport (no sensitivity to feelings and concerns, "including use of stock phrases"), Listening ("poor active listening skills"), Language (the examiner felt "you used medical jargon, or spoke too quickly for the patient to take in what you were saying", including not checking understanding) and Time. Read them before you practise. They are the examiners’ own list of the habits that lose marks.

PACES. Two examiners watch each station and each grades every skill Satisfactory (2), Borderline (1) or Unsatisfactory (0), per the Federation format page. A communication encounter is marked on four of the seven skills: C Clinical Communication, E Clinical Judgement, F Managing Patients’ Concerns and G Maintaining Patient Welfare. The PACES23 Station 1 marksheet is blunt: unsatisfactory communication is "Unsystematic; uses jargon; appears unpractised; unprofessional", an unsatisfactory F is "Poor listening; lacks empathy", and a satisfactory F "Demonstrates active listening and confirms patient’s or relative’s understanding". The 20-minute consultations add history, examination and diagnosis, so they are marked on all seven skills, A to G.

PLAB 2: 1 minute 30 seconds, then 8 minutes. Per the GMC page on what to expect on the day, you get 1 minute and 30 seconds to move to the next room and read the instructions, then eight minutes in the station, and a timer announces when to move on. The examiner watches in person, by telephone or by remote camera and "will not intervene, except in very limited circumstances". The GMC page on how you will be tested adds two rules: begin every station by confirming your name and GMC number, because the examiner may be watching remotely; and some rooms are telephone consultations, connected before you enter, so do not touch the phone or monitor. Sixteen stations in around three hours is a long session, so what you are training is clear speech in minute seven of station fourteen.

PACES: read before the bell, then 10 minutes. The PACES23 communication example scenarios tell you to read the scenario and enter when the bell sounds: "You have 10 minutes for your consultation with the patient/surrogate." The examiner notes in the same PDF ask examiners to tell you when 2 minutes remain, to remind you of the time if you seem to have finished early, and then to "remain silent". The surrogate stays until the end. And: "A good candidate would be expected to have agreed a summary plan of action with the subject before closure." The last two minutes belong to the summary and the plan, not to new information.

In PACES the 2-minute warning comes at 8:00. If you are still explaining when it comes, you are late. Practise with a visible timer from the first week: the clock is part of the exam, and the GMC lists poor time management as a feedback statement of its own.

PLAB 2. Book in the PLAB booking service in GMC Online once you have a valid PLAB 1 pass; the GMC says you can book only through your own GMC Online account. You must pass PLAB 2 within two years of passing PLAB 1, and the pass date is the date you sat PLAB 1, not the date of the result. You have four attempts; after a fourth fail you must apply for an additional, fifth and final attempt. Results are published within a month of the exam date. All per the GMC PLAB 2 guide. The fee is on the GMC fees page, which we did not re-check this week, so we do not quote a figure. The booking page does say that refugee doctors living in the UK pay 50 per cent less for their first two attempts. Both centres are in Manchester and the GMC warns that their addresses look very similar, so check yours before you travel.

PACES diet 2027/01, per the Federation exam dates and fees page read on 21 October 2026: UK applications open 10 November 2026 at 08:00 GMT and close 17 November 2026 at 08:00 GMT; the UK fee is GBP 742; assessments run from late January to mid April 2027. International centres had their own, earlier window for the same diet, 6 to 13 October 2026, which has closed. The international fee is GBP 1,358 for diet 2027/01, except Hong Kong (HKD 16,300) and Singapore (GBP 1,485). Admission documents with your date, time and place are sent at least four weeks before the exam. The centre locations page lists, among others, nine Indian cities (Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, New Delhi, Puducherry, Pune and Thiruvananthapuram), Pakistan, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Sudan, Jordan and six Gulf states.

The UK window is one week long and opens at 08:00 UK time. Set the reminder now; the dates block on this page updates every week.

TalkDrill is an English speaking practice app. It is not a medical school, a PLAB academy or a Royal College course, and nothing in this guide is clinical advice. Our scenarios carry only the clinical detail a communication task needs, and you must check every clinical point against current UK guidance and the BNF; the GMC says drug names in PLAB 2 are those in the most recent BNF. What we do give you: an AI patient or relative who interrupts, worries and asks the awkward question, as often as you like, with your own 8 or 10-minute timer running; self-mark checklists built on the GMC feedback statements and the PACES skills; and read-aloud practice that scores each word, so you hear where pace or stress hid the key word. Record yourself on your phone in week one and again in week six, and listen to both.

Why this layer matters for our readers in particular. Many of you studied medicine in English and, at home, talk to many of your patients in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Arabic, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Sinhala or Bengali. The result, in our judgement, is fluent textbook English and very little kitchen-table English: you know "dyspnoea" and "haemoglobin", but not the five-word version a frightened daughter in Manchester needs. That gap is exactly what the GMC’s Language statement and the PACES marksheet’s "uses jargon" describe. The first-language page lists the habits group by group, and the plain-English phrase page has the replacements.

Eight weeks, six days a week, 20 to 55 minutes a day, and two scenarios on almost every day. Four days a week you practise alone with an AI patient; two days a week you practise with a partner; day 6 of weeks 4 and 7 is a full mock under exam timing. The plan is written for PLAB 2 (16 scenarios of 8 minutes, per the GMC PLAB 2 guide) and fits a PACES diet with one change: time each communication scenario at 10 minutes and each consultation at 20. It covers communication only; clinical knowledge and examination technique come from your own study. The reasoning and the variants are on the 8-week roadmap page.

Each scenario has three parts. The prompt is the station card you read before the bell. The counterpart is the brief for whoever plays the patient or relative: a study partner, a colleague or the TalkDrill AI patient. Do not let the person playing the doctor read it. The model gives the key lines of a strong consultation (opening, ideas, concerns and expectations, chunk and check, a plain explanation, safety-netting and a close), and the examiner note names the PLAB 2 domain or the PACES skills the station really tests. Set a timer: 8 minutes for a PLAB 2 scenario (per the GMC PLAB 2 guide), 10 minutes for a PACES communication encounter and 15 minutes plus 5 minutes of examiner questions for a PACES consultation (per the Federation PACES format page). All 40 scenarios and every model line were written by TalkDrill for practice. They are not recalls of real stations. The clinical content is simplified so you can practise the conversation; check it against current UK guidance before you rely on it.