This audit is for trainees who searched for a BMJ OnExamination SCE Infectious Diseases bank and its analytics. Checked on 20 July 2026, two honest findings come first and reframe everything: the MRCP(UK) SCE in Infectious Diseases was withdrawn—its final examination was held in 2017—and BMJ OnExamination does not, in any case, publish an infectious diseases SCE product. There is no dashboard to audit for an exam that no longer runs, so this piece redirects you to the assessment that does.
What actually exists for UK infectious diseases certification right now
Lead with the finding. The Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians states that the SCE in Infectious Diseases held its final examination in 2017. UK infection training moved to Combined Infection Training (from August 2015), and the knowledge examination is now the Combined Infection Certificate Examination (CICE), delivered by the Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath), not the Federation. The CICE is described as two three-hour papers of 100 single-best-answer questions each (200 in total), held twice yearly, covering a combined-infection blueprint that spans clinical infection and medical microbiology/virology. Trainees typically dual-certify—infectious diseases with medical microbiology or virology, or infectious diseases with internal medicine—so the assessment is broader than a pure clinical-ID SCE ever was.
Against that reality, BMJ OnExamination's position is straightforward. Its Specialty Certificate Examination range as of 20 July 2026 is Acute Medicine, Endocrinology & Diabetes, Geriatric Medicine, Respiratory Medicine, Neurology and Medical Oncology (vendor-reported, onexamination.com); there is no infectious diseases SCE product, and the direct product URL returns a 404. Infection content on the platform exists only as a subject filter within its MRCP(UK) Part 1 and Part 2 banks, and within the infection-adjacent slices of its Acute Medicine SCE bank.
| Item | Status on 20 July 2026 |
|---|---|
| MRCP(UK) SCE in Infectious Diseases | Withdrawn; final exam 2017 (Federation) |
| Current UK infection knowledge exam | CICE / FRCPath route via RCPath (two 3h papers, 100 SBA each) |
| BMJ OnExamination ID SCE bank | Not offered (vendor-reported; no such product) |
| BMJ infection content available | MRCP Part 1/2 subject filter; Acute Medicine SCE infection slices |
| Blueprinting to a live ID SCE | Not possible—no live SCE ID blueprint exists |
Why the "exam anchor" has to change
There is no current MRCP(UK) SCE Infectious Diseases blueprint to compare your practice against, so the honest anchor is the exam candidates actually sit. The CICE's combined-infection scope covers clinical infectious diseases and tropical medicine alongside laboratory microbiology and virology—antimicrobial chemotherapy and stewardship, healthcare-associated infection and infection prevention and control, HIV and blood-borne viruses, tuberculosis and mycobacterial disease, imported and tropical infection, sepsis and deep-seated infection, and diagnostic microbiology. That breadth is wider than a BMJ MRCP infection subject filter, which is built for general medicine, not for a combined-infection certification. Treat any third-party "SCE Infectious Diseases" label you encounter with caution: for the UK, that exam is historical.
Define every metric—so you can read whatever bank you use
The analytics-reading discipline still transfers to a CICE-appropriate resource, so define each metric. First-attempt accuracy on unseen items is the only exam-like figure. Repeat accuracy rises through recognition. Percentile / peer benchmark compares you with a product's own users, not the infection cohort. A pass-likelihood indicator—the kind BMJ OnExamination shows as "how likely you are to pass"—is a coarse readout on self-selected practice, never a validated prediction. Coverage is the share of a bank attempted, not the share of the blueprint mastered. Difficulty is usually a cohort statistic. Time per item is the least gameable number and the one to watch under exam pace (roughly 1.8 minutes per best-of-five item).
Selection bias and repeats: why the average misleads
Whatever infection resource you use, the same distortion applies: when you choose topics, redo flagged items and read explanations mid-attempt, your practice samples your attention, not the blueprint. An engagement-oriented feed compounds this. For infection specifically, the danger is over-practising familiar antimicrobial-choice questions while under-testing laboratory diagnostics, infection prevention and control, and tropical and imported disease—so a flattering average hides exactly the combined-infection breadth the CICE demands. This is why a Q-bank percentage is not an exam score: the denominator is curated by you and the platform, not by the blueprint.
The readiness test: five conditions for a credible signal
A number becomes a readiness signal only when the items are unseen, the block is timed at exam pace, the content is mixed across the whole blueprint, you work with no assistance, and the sample is large (prefer 100-plus items; discount short runs as noise). No BMJ OnExamination dashboard can satisfy these for infectious diseases, because the platform has no infection SCE bank and, more fundamentally, the SCE itself no longer exists. Apply the five conditions to a CICE-appropriate combined-infection bank instead, and read the first-attempt, timed figure rather than any cumulative average.
Override rules: force the combined-infection breadth
If you assemble an infection revision stack, override any feed to force the domains a general medicine filter under-samples: diagnostic microbiology and virology (interpreting cultures, molecular tests, serology), antimicrobial stewardship and resistance mechanisms, infection prevention and control, HIV and blood-borne viruses, tuberculosis and mycobacteria, and tropical and imported infection. Force calculation-adjacent items—antimicrobial dosing in renal impairment, therapeutic drug monitoring—read against the SmPC/eMC and current UKHSA, NICE and specialty-society (for example BHIVA, British Infection Association) guidance rather than local habit. Antimicrobial recommendations date quickly; verify recency deliberately.
Worked example: turning a hypothetical dashboard into quotas
Imagine an infection trainee revising on a general MRCP bank shows 80% overall: heavy volume on antibiotic-choice items at 88%, sparse attempts on laboratory diagnostics at 52%, none on infection prevention and control, none on tropical medicine, mean 60 seconds per item. The 80% is not a readiness signal—it is an average over an unbalanced, untimed, self-selected, and wrongly scoped sample. Convert it into quotas rather than a prediction:
| Signal | Reading | Next action |
|---|---|---|
| 88% antibiotic choice, high volume | Over-sampled comfort zone | Cap at 20 timed unseen items |
| 52% laboratory diagnostics, low volume | Real weakness, under-tested | 40 items on a combined-infection bank |
| No IPC / tropical items | Scope blind spot for the CICE | 30 items each, unseen |
| 60s per item | Pace inflated by untimed practice | All blocks timed |
No pass percentage is generated, because none is defensible—and because the target exam is the CICE, not an ID SCE.
Seven-day plan: a CICE-appropriate bank for coverage, iatroX for measurement
Because there is no ID SCE and no BMJ ID SCE bank, the realistic week uses a combined-infection resource aligned to the CICE for coverage and iatroX for unseen, cross-specialty measurement. iatroX is not an infectious diseases-specific bank; it is the cross-specialty UK/MRCP-level knowledge and unseen-MCQ measurement layer that sits alongside a specialty bank—useful for the general-medicine reasoning, sepsis recognition and prescribing safety that underpin infection practice, and for spaced retrieval of misses.
| Day | Combined-infection bank (coverage) | iatroX (unseen measurement) |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 40 items: diagnostic microbiology/virology | — |
| Tue | Error review; retrieval notes | 20 unseen mixed items, timed |
| Wed | 40 items: HIV/BBV + tuberculosis | — |
| Thu | 40 items: stewardship + resistance | 20 unseen mixed items, timed |
| Fri | 40 items: IPC + tropical/imported | — |
| Sat | 100-item timed mixed mock | — |
| Sun | Spaced re-test of the week's misses | 30 unseen mixed items, timed |
No item is practised twice across platforms, per the two-Q-bank rule.
Three mistakes this audit is designed to stop
First, spending money and weeks hunting for a BMJ OnExamination SCE Infectious Diseases bank that does not exist for an exam that no longer runs. Second, using a general MRCP infection filter as if it were scoped to the combined-infection CICE, so laboratory diagnostics and infection prevention stay untested. Third, reading a pass-likelihood indicator or cumulative average as readiness when only unseen, timed, mixed first-attempt data can serve as a signal.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
Continue with BMJ OnExamination only for the exams it covers (its MRCP and non-infection SCE products), or for general-medicine consolidation. Supplement—really "acquire"—a combined-infection resource aligned to the CICE, plus iatroX for unseen measurement, because BMJ cannot scope to infection certification. Switch your infection coverage entirely to a CICE-appropriate bank. Stop adding questions when timed, mixed, first-attempt accuracy plateaus and errors are careless rather than gaps, and move to exam-condition mocks. Decide on measurable gaps, not novelty or sunk cost.
Bottom line
For UK infectious diseases there is no current SCE to prepare for and no BMJ OnExamination infectious diseases bank to audit; the assessment that matters is the RCPath CICE within Combined Infection Training. Point your coverage at a combined-infection resource scoped to that exam, keep the analytics-reading discipline, and use iatroX as the unseen cross-specialty measurement and spaced-retrieval layer that tells you whether your infection knowledge transfers.
FAQ
Is BMJ OnExamination enough for SCE Infectious Diseases on its own? No, and the deeper point is that the premise does not hold: the MRCP(UK) SCE in Infectious Diseases was withdrawn after its final 2017 sitting, and BMJ OnExamination does not publish an infectious diseases SCE bank in any case (verified 20 July 2026), so it cannot be "enough" for an exam that no longer exists.
Which SCE Infectious Diseases component does BMJ OnExamination not reproduce well? All of the combined-infection scope that the current CICE tests—diagnostic microbiology and virology, infection prevention and control, and tropical and imported disease—because BMJ's infection content is a general-medicine MRCP subject filter, not a resource scoped to infection certification.
How many BMJ OnExamination questions should I complete per day for SCE Infectious Diseases? This is not a useful target, since BMJ OnExamination has no infectious diseases SCE bank and the SCE itself is discontinued; a defensible day is around 40 items on a combined-infection bank aligned to the CICE plus a short timed unseen block for measurement.
When should I stop using BMJ OnExamination and move to mixed mocks? For infection you would move to a CICE-appropriate combined-infection bank immediately and to full mixed mocks once your first-attempt, timed accuracy on unseen items has stabilised; BMJ's infection filter is at most light general-medicine consolidation, not the primary resource.
How should I combine BMJ OnExamination with iatroX without duplicating practice? Keep BMJ OnExamination only for the exams it actually covers, use a combined-infection bank for CICE-scoped coverage, and reserve iatroX for unseen, timed, mixed blocks that measure transfer—so each tool does one job and no item is practised twice.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026. Vendor and exam-body figures are as reported on the dates checked and change without notice; verify the current position with the Federation, RCPath and onexamination.com before acting. Infection prescribing facts should be taken from the SmPC/eMC and current UKHSA, NICE, CKS and specialty-society guidance. Disclosure: iatroX operates a competing UK question bank and clinical-knowledge platform; here its role is confined to jobs BMJ OnExamination does not claim—cross-specialty knowledge and unseen-MCQ measurement—and iatroX is not a specialty-specific infectious diseases bank. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com. References: Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians (MRCP(UK)) SCE Infectious Diseases page (final exam 2017) and SCE format; RCPath Combined Infection Certificate Examination / FRCPath route and Combined Infection Training arrangements; BMJ OnExamination product pages (onexamination.com); and the iatroX framework pieces on Q-bank percentage and blueprint-coverage matrices. Compare tools on the iatroX comparison hub.
Run a fresh, timed unseen block in iatroX and decide learn, retest, simulate or stop →