This audit is for endocrinology and diabetes trainees deciding whether Licence Medical belongs in their SCE revision stack, and if so for which job. In short: Licence Medical publishes a dedicated SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes question bank with detailed explanations and PDF revision notes, which makes it a reasonable primary-coverage option — but its live question count, price, access period and any adaptive features are not published on its accessible product pages, so you must verify them directly before buying. The principal limitation of any single standard bank, this one included, is that it cannot measure the transfer of your knowledge to unseen questions.
Current-state box: what Licence Medical states
Last checked 21 July 2026. Licence Medical (license-medical.com) markets UK MRCP and Specialty Certificate Examination revision, and its catalogue lists an Endocrinology and Diabetes SCE question bank alongside other specialties. The site emphasises detailed explanations for each question, PDF revision notes, and coverage of most examination topics. What it does not clearly publish on the pages reviewed is a live question count, price, access period, free-trial availability or any AI/adaptive feature; the site directs enquiries to the vendor by email. We therefore do not state a number: verify the current count, price and access terms on the product page or with the vendor before purchase, and treat any figure quoted elsewhere as unconfirmed. For comparison, other providers are more transparent — StudyPRN lists a vendor-reported endocrinology bank of around 891 questions with a three-hour mock at £189 for twelve months, and BMJ OnExamination lists an SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes bank at a vendor-reported £59.99 for one month — both as of 21 July 2026 and both subject to change.
Exam anchor: the SCE format and blueprint
The SCE in Endocrinology and Diabetes is delivered by the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians as two papers of 100 best-of-five questions — 200 in total — each paper three hours, on one day, at a Surpass computer-based test centre, one mark per correct answer, no negative marking. The blueprint samples the whole JRCPTB curriculum: diabetes and its emergencies and complications; thyroid; hypothalamus and pituitary; adrenal; gonads and reproductive endocrinology; parathyroid, calcium and bone; and other endocrine topics from lipids and neuroendocrine tumours to endocrinology in pregnancy and disorders of sodium and water. The Federation's format and blueprint are the authoritative requirement; a vendor's claim to "cover the blueprint" is a marketing statement to be checked against your own coverage audit.
Record the count by domain, not the headline
Because Licence Medical does not publish a headline count, the audit method matters more than usual: work through the bank in blueprint order and record how many questions you actually encounter per domain, rather than trusting any total. A bank can hold a large number of questions and still be thin in reproductive endocrinology, calcium and bone, or endocrine hypertension while being dense in diabetes and thyroid. Build the per-domain tally yourself; it is the only reliable way to know whether the bank's distribution matches the exam's breadth, and it turns an unverified headline into an evidence-based coverage map.
Sample the question style
Audit a stratified sample of items for style, because coverage without the right cognitive demand is hollow. Check the balance of recall versus application: does the bank ask you to recognise a fact, or to interpret a dynamic-test profile and choose the next step? Look at stem length and realism, the plausibility of the distractors (weak distractors inflate your score and teach little), and whether image and data interpretation — pituitary MRI, adrenal CT, thyroid function panels, calcium-PTH pictures, DXA — is genuinely present. Management-sequencing items, where you must order investigations or treatment, are a good marker of exam-grade difficulty; note whether they appear.
Jurisdiction and recency
Check a stratified sample against current UK guidance and record the review date. Endocrinology moves quickly, so confirm that explanations reflect present-day NICE, SIGN, Joint British Diabetes Societies, British Thyroid Association and DVLA positions, and that medicines detail matches the SmPC via the electronic medicines compendium rather than a superseded source. Pay particular attention to the fast-moving areas — GLP-1 receptor agonists and dual agonists, SGLT2 inhibitor indications and euglycaemic ketoacidosis risk, and diabetes technology — where an explanation written a couple of updates ago can be quietly wrong. If a sample shows dated or non-UK content, weight the bank towards early learning and calibrate elsewhere.
Format gap: what a standard bank cannot do
State this plainly to yourself: a standard multiple-choice bank, however good, under-trains three things this exam rewards. It cannot fully rehearse dynamic testing interpretation under time pressure, because reading a suppression or stimulation profile and acting on it is a skill built by deliberate, timed data practice. It cannot guarantee guideline recency, because static explanations age. And it cannot, by itself, confirm your interpretation of endocrine investigations transfers to unseen material. These are not criticisms of Licence Medical specifically; they are the limits of the format, and they are the reason a second, unseen measurement layer belongs in the stack.
Duplication and contamination
Assess how often the bank repeats concepts and whether it contains near-duplicate stems. Some repetition aids retention, but heavy duplication means your rising accuracy reflects recognition of familiar items rather than growing competence — the point at which "completing the bank" becomes memorising it. Watch for the moment your accuracy climbs while your sense of difficulty falls; that is contamination, and it is the signal to stop re-running the bank and start measuring on genuinely unseen questions. Our note on why a Q-bank percentage is not your exam score explains why this inflation is so easy to miss.
Best-fit matrix
On the evidence, Licence Medical is best positioned as a foundation-building and first-pass coverage bank for candidates who value detailed written explanations and PDF notes, provided you verify its count and price first. It can serve as a second bank for someone whose primary source is another specialty product, as long as duplication is low. It is less suited, on its own, to the final-simulation and retake roles, where you need clean, unseen, full-length mixed papers and official-sample calibration — jobs better served by the Federation's official material plus an unseen measurement bank. Match the tool to the phase rather than expecting one bank to do everything.
Worked example: a seven-day plan around clinical work
A realistic week for a busy trainee, using Licence Medical for one defined job — first-pass coverage with explanation-led learning — and iatroX for unseen transfer measurement. No proprietary-algorithm claims; the mechanism is ordinary spaced, mixed retrieval.
- Monday: Timed 30-question Licence Medical block on a weak domain (say, calcium and bone); read every explanation; code errors by domain, process and format. 50 minutes.
- Tuesday: Spaced retrieval of Monday's misses plus a corrected-calcium and osmolality calculation drill. 20 minutes.
- Wednesday: New Licence Medical block on a second domain (adrenal); log high-confidence errors separately. 45 minutes.
- Thursday: Fresh, timed, unseen mixed block in iatroX; record first-attempt accuracy to measure transfer. 30 minutes.
- Friday: Review the week's error codes; read the relevant UK guideline for any recency-flagged topic. 30 minutes.
- Saturday: Longer 50-question timed mixed block for stamina. 75 minutes.
- Sunday: Update the coverage table; plan next week. Rest otherwise.
Every four to six weeks, replace one session with a Federation official-sample calibration under full exam conditions.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
Use measurable gaps, not novelty or sunk cost. Continue with Licence Medical while your per-domain tally shows genuine coverage gaps it can fill and its explanations are teaching you. Supplement with a second, unseen bank such as iatroX once your recognition is high but transfer to unseen questions lags. Switch your primary bank only if your stratified sample shows dated or non-UK content, weak distractors or heavy duplication — measurable faults, not a competitor's newness. Stop adding new questions when your unseen mixed score is comfortably above the standard, your official-sample calibration is clean, and your remaining errors are careless rather than knowledge gaps.
Three mistakes this audit is designed to stop
The first mistake is buying on a headline claim you cannot verify. Because Licence Medical does not publish its question count, price or access terms on its accessible pages, "covers the blueprint" is a marketing statement until your own per-domain tally confirms it, so audit before you commit rather than after. The second mistake is mistaking a rising accuracy curve for growing competence when it is really recognition of near-duplicate stems; if your score climbs while the questions feel easier, you are memorising the bank rather than learning the specialty. The third mistake is running a single bank to exhaustion as though that were the finish line. Completing every question a bank holds tells you that you have seen its items, not that your knowledge transfers to unseen ones or that it reflects current UK guidance — which is exactly why a second, unseen measurement layer and the Federation's official sample belong in the plan.
Bottom line
Licence Medical is a reasonable explanation-led coverage bank for SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes, best used for foundation building and a first pass once you have verified its figures and confirmed its depth in your weak domains. It is not, by itself, a calibration or measurement tool. Cover with it, calibrate on the Federation's official sample, and measure transfer on an unseen bank such as iatroX.
Frequently asked questions
Is Licence Medical enough for SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes on its own? It can carry a large share of your coverage if its per-domain distribution matches the blueprint and its content is current, but no single standard bank is enough on its own, because it cannot honestly measure whether your knowledge transfers to unseen questions. Pair it with the Federation's official sample for calibration and a second, unseen bank for measurement. Because Licence Medical does not publish its question count, confirm the bank is deep enough for your weak domains before relying on it as your only source.
Which SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes component does Licence Medical not reproduce well? Like any static bank, it under-reproduces timed dynamic-test interpretation, the mixed and blueprint-blind sequencing of the real paper, and guaranteed guideline currency. Its strength is explanation-led learning; its limits are the format's limits. The components it cannot fully rehearse are best covered by timed mixed simulation, official-sample calibration and disciplined recency-checking against UK guidance.
How many Licence Medical questions should I complete per day for SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes? Because the bank's total is unpublished, set a process target rather than a count target: a sustainable timed block of 30 to 40 questions per study day with full explanation review and error-coding, adjusted to your rota. Quality of review beats raw volume; 30 questions you analyse properly will move your score more than 120 you skim. Track your per-domain tally so you know when a domain is exhausted and it is time to move on or measure elsewhere.
When should I stop using Licence Medical and move to mixed mocks? Shift toward full-length mixed mocks in the final three to four weeks, once your domain-level accuracy is adequate and your outstanding need is pacing, stamina and format familiarity. You can keep Licence Medical for patching specific gaps the mocks reveal, but the centre of gravity should move from single-topic blocks to blended, timed papers and official-sample calibration as the exam approaches.
How should I combine Licence Medical with iatroX without duplicating practice? Give each a distinct role: Licence Medical as the explanation-led coverage bank, and iatroX as the unseen cross-specialty UK measurement layer. Because iatroX is not a specialty endocrinology SCE bank but a broad UK MRCP-level bank, its items will not duplicate Licence Medical's, which is exactly what makes it a clean second measurement rather than more of the same — the essence of the two-Q-bank rule. Use one to learn and cover, the other to measure transfer honestly.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 21 July 2026. Licence Medical publishes an SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes bank, but its live question count, price, access period and any adaptive features are not stated on its accessible product pages as of 21 July 2026; we have not invented figures — verify current details on the product page or with the vendor. Comparison figures for StudyPRN and BMJ OnExamination are vendor-reported on 21 July 2026 and change without notice. Disclosure: iatroX operates a UK question bank and therefore competes with Licence Medical; we have confined iatroX's role to the unseen-measurement and cross-specialty-knowledge job Licence Medical does not claim to do. Corrections via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: Licence Medical — Endocrinology and Diabetes SCE; Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians — SCE in Endocrinology and Diabetes; iatroX — why a Q-bank percentage is not your exam score and the SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes content-gap checklist.
Run a fresh timed SCE Endocrinology and Diabetes block in iatroX →