Interview Overview
Internal Medicine Training is one of the few specialties selected on interview alone. IMT does not use the Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment — your self-assessment decides only whether you are shortlisted, and the interview alone forms the score you are ranked on.
Format and marks below are the 2026 position. NHS England's Physician Specialty Recruitment Office confirmed in July 2026 that the 2027 process will be “largely unchanged”, and will publish the 2027 detail in autumn 2026.
The interview format
The interview is held online through Qpercom Recruit and runs to about 30 minutes in total: two stations of eleven minutes, each with two interviewers scoring independently. The use of AI during the interview is prohibited and disqualifying.
- Station 1 — application and achievements, suitability for IMT, and ethics, professionalism and governance
- Station 2 — a clinical scenario covering investigations, diagnosis and management, closing with a one-minute handover
- Communication is marked in both stations, not as a station of its own
How the interview is scored
Seven areas are assessed, each scored out of five by both interviewers — fourteen scores, giving a raw maximum of 70. A three out of five is satisfactory, described as the standard of a competent F2. Those raw scores are then weighted to a maximum of 96.
The weightings favour the areas that discriminate most: application and achievements, suitability for IMT, and both communication marks are weighted 1.6; ethics and the clinical scenario 1.2; the handover 0.8.
Appointability
All three conditions must be met: no score of one out of five, no more than two scores of two out of five, and a raw score of at least 42.
What has changed for 2027
- Prioritisation now applies at shortlisting as well as at offer, so it affects who is invited to interview at all. The criteria themselves were still unpublished as of August 2026.
- The five IMT-only shortlisting points are removed, so the self-assessment maximum falls from 35 to 30.
- Publications drop from a maximum of 8 to 6; presentations and posters rise from 6 to 8.
- Abstracts and letters can no longer be claimed under PubMed-cited other publications.
Applications for the 2027 round open at 10am on 22 October 2026 and close at 4pm on 19 November 2026. The national interview window runs from 11 January to 2 April 2027, with initial offers by 6 April 2027. IMT's own dates within that window are published in autumn 2026.
Top Tips
- Rehearse the two-minute opening presentation out loud and to time — there are no slides, and it sets the tone for the whole of station one.
- Prepare the handover separately. It is only one minute and carries the lowest weighting, but it is the easiest mark to lose by rambling.
- Communication is marked in both stations. Treat it as continuous, not as something you switch on for the ethics question.
- Know your own portfolio. The application and achievements area carries the joint-highest weighting.
More interview info
Practise every station
The question bank covers every station with model answers and AI-marked spoken practice.
Register for the question bank