OccuMed Exam Prep is one of the few dedicated DOccMed question banks aimed squarely at the 80-question MCQ paper, and this audit is for the candidate deciding whether it can carry their question practice. The short version: it is a legitimate, reasonably priced knowledge bank with a matching timed mock, and its principal limitation is finite volume plus the structural fact that no bank can reproduce the portfolio and viva. This audit breaks the headline total down by blueprint domain rather than trusting the number on the tin.
What OccuMed Exam Prep actually offers right now
OccuMed Exam Prep (occumedexamprep.com) is a commercial DOccMed revision platform combining a question bank with revision guides, slide decks, podcasts and viva-preparation services. The summary below was last checked on 21 July 2026; every figure is vendor-reported and should be confirmed on the provider's own pricing page before you rely on it.
| Item | What we found (vendor-reported, last checked 21 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Live question count | "500 exam-style questions" with detailed explanations |
| Timed mock | An 80-question timed mock drawn from the bank — matched to the real paper length |
| Domains covered | Workplace legislation, occupational-health assessments, workplace hazards, and disease management |
| Question Bank Only price | £40 (1 month), £70 (3 months), £90 (6 months) |
| Complete Study Bundle | £85 (1 month), £160 (3 months), £199 (6 months) — bank plus slide deck, revision guide and podcast/video series |
| Portfolio & viva add-ons | Portfolio & Viva online guide £35; 1:1 mock viva £149; group webinar £79; webinar-plus-viva bundle £199 |
| Discounts | 20% for SOM members on three- and six-month plans (vendor-reported) |
| AI / adaptive features | None advertised — treat as a static, curated bank |
The offering is coherent: a mid-sized bank, a real timed mock, and a set of viva and portfolio supports sold separately. The strategic question this audit answers is whether 500 items, distributed as they are, actually cover the DOccMed blueprint — or whether the headline total hides thin patches.
The exam anchor: what the bank has to cover
DOccMed's knowledge gate is an MCQ paper of 80 best-fit questions in 1 hour 45 minutes with no negative marking (FOM, verified 21 July 2026), followed by a separate portfolio-and-viva component — two written reports plus an oral with two examiners. The MCQ tests occupational-health knowledge across fitness for work, health surveillance, workplace hazards, risk assessment, and law and ethics. Crucially, the FOM publishes no full specimen paper, only seven illustrative example questions, so there is no official benchmark of item difficulty to compare a commercial bank against — you have to audit coverage yourself. That is what makes a blueprint-by-blueprint breakdown, rather than a headline count, the honest way to judge OccuMed.
Breaking the headline down by blueprint domain
A total of 500 is only meaningful once you distribute it across the syllabus. OccuMed does not publish a per-domain split, so the table below pairs the FOM blueprint areas with the vendor's stated coverage and gives you a method to estimate the real distribution from a sample. Treat the "indicative share" column as a hypothesis to test, not a vendor claim.
| FOM blueprint domain | OccuMed coverage (vendor-stated themes) | How to verify the real share |
|---|---|---|
| Fitness for work / OH assessments | Yes — "occupational-health assessments" | Tag a random 40-item sample by domain and count |
| Health surveillance | Implied within assessments and hazards | Check for named surveillance triggers (noise, HAVS, respiratory) |
| Workplace hazards | Yes — "workplace hazards" | Look for physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic and psychosocial items |
| Law and ethics | Yes — "workplace legislation" | Count items on the Equality Act 2010, HSWA 1974, RIDDOR, COSHH |
| Risk assessment | Partly — folded into hazards/practical | Check for explicit risk-assessment reasoning items |
| Disease management | Yes — "disease management" | Confirm occupational-disease specifics, not general medicine |
Sampling matters because a bank can hit every domain label while still being lopsided — heavy on disease management and light on the UK-specific law and reporting that the FOM's own examples emphasise. Draw a stratified sample of 40 items, tag each by domain, and you will know within an evening whether the 500 are balanced or whether legislation and surveillance are thinner than the headline implies.
Sampling the question style
Coverage is necessary but not sufficient; style determines whether practice transfers. Assess a sample of OccuMed items on five axes: recall versus application (the FOM examples are scenario-driven application, so recall-heavy items under-pitch the exam), stem length (the real stems run two to four sentences), option plausibility (are the distractors genuinely tempting or obviously wrong?), image and data interpretation (occupational health uses audiograms, spirometry and exposure data), and management sequencing (what to do or report next). OccuMed advertises "detailed explanations", which is the single most valuable quality feature, because a bank teaches through its explanations as much as its questions. Read ten explanations before you buy the longer plan: shallow, unsourced rationales are a red flag regardless of how many questions sit behind them.
Jurisdiction and recency
Occupational medicine is jurisdiction-bound and time-sensitive, which makes recency a first-order concern. UK law and reporting — the Equality Act 2010, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and its regulations, RIDDOR thresholds, COSHH — must reflect the current position, and health-surveillance and disease-specific guidance shift over time. Check a stratified sample against current official or primary guidance and record the review date. Where medicines appear, the reference is the SmPC/eMC together with current NICE and CKS guidance, never a memorised list. Because OccuMed does not publish a last-reviewed date per item, treat currency as unverified until you spot-check: pick five legally-loaded items and confirm they match the present statutory position. If they do, that is real reassurance; if they lag, discount the legal content accordingly.
The format gap: what a bank cannot do
State this plainly, because it is the crux of the audit. A question bank — OccuMed included — can prepare you well for the MCQ's knowledge of UK legislation, surveillance, ethics and risk assessment. What it cannot do is reproduce the portfolio (two written reports, including a workplace assessment you have actually conducted) or the live viva with two examiners. OccuMed sells viva and portfolio guides and mock-viva sessions as separate products, which is an honest acknowledgement that these sit outside the bank itself. So even a candidate who exhausts all 500 items has completed only the knowledge component of their preparation; the applied and oral components need the FOM portfolio template, real workplace experience, and interactive rehearsal.
Duplication and contamination: when completion becomes recognition
Finite banks carry a specific hazard. With around 500 items, a diligent candidate on a three- or six-month plan will see every question more than once, and repeated concepts or near-duplicate stems accelerate the point at which you are recognising an item rather than reasoning through it. When that happens, your rising percentage measures memory of the bank, not readiness for unseen questions — the precise trap described in Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score. The defence is structural: reserve the 80-item mock for late, unseen use rather than burning it early, and keep a second, genuinely unseen source to measure transfer. Completing OccuMed is not the same as covering DOccMed, which is the whole argument of the completion-is-not-coverage guide.
Best-fit matrix: where OccuMed is strongest
Match the bank to the job it does best rather than asking it to be everything.
| Use case | Is OccuMed a strong fit? |
|---|---|
| Foundation building for a first-time candidate | Yes — coherent coverage plus explanations make it a solid first bank |
| First pass through the syllabus | Yes — 500 items with explanations suit a structured first pass |
| Second bank for a candidate who has finished another | Partly — useful for fresh items, but watch for concept overlap |
| Retake after a near miss | Yes for targeted gaps; pair with an unseen layer to avoid recognition |
| Final unseen simulation | Only via its 80-item mock, and only if kept unseen until late — otherwise use a separate measurement source |
The pattern is that OccuMed is strongest as a first or foundation bank and weakest as your sole late-stage simulator, because a finite, revisited bank cannot stay unseen.
A worked seven-day plan: OccuMed to build, iatroX to measure
Give each tool one job, and make no proprietary-algorithm claims — the spacing is a manual schedule you run yourself, with iatroX as the neutral unseen-measurement layer (its UK Q-bank at quiz-landing).
- Day 1 (build): Work an OccuMed block on workplace legislation, reading every explanation. Log misses by sub-topic.
- Day 2 (space): Re-test only the concepts you missed, then read two or three explanations on adjacent law.
- Day 3 (unseen measurement): Sit a fresh, timed 20-item iatroX block on unseen material at ~79 s/item. Record first-attempt accuracy — your transfer signal.
- Day 4 (build hazards): OccuMed block on workplace hazards and surveillance; note any items that feel familiar rather than reasoned — an early recognition warning.
- Day 5 (interleave): Mixed timed block spanning law, hazards and fitness for work so retrieval competes across domains.
- Day 6 (portfolio/viva): Switch to the FOM portfolio template and, if bought, an OccuMed mock viva — the components the bank cannot test.
- Day 7 (re-measure and route): Repeat an unseen iatroX block. If OccuMed accuracy is climbing but unseen accuracy is flat, you are recognising items — rotate to fresh material and space the misses harder.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue with OccuMed if you are still on your first pass, your per-domain sample looks balanced, and the explanations are teaching you — it is doing its job.
- Supplement with an unseen measurement layer as soon as your OccuMed percentage outruns your unseen accuracy; add the FOM portfolio template and viva rehearsal for the non-MCQ components.
- Switch the bulk of your drilling only if a domain sample reveals a real coverage hole (commonly UK law or surveillance) that OccuMed cannot fill for your timeline.
- Stop new OccuMed questions when unseen timed accuracy is comfortably above standard across all domains and pacing on 80 items in 1 hour 45 minutes is stable; then let the late mock and spaced review finish the job.
The bottom line
OccuMed Exam Prep is a credible, fairly priced DOccMed knowledge bank with the rare virtue of a matching 80-item timed mock and explicit portfolio-and-viva support sold alongside. Its limits are the ordinary limits of any finite bank — 500 items eventually become familiar, and no bank reproduces the portfolio or the viva. So use it as a strong first or foundation bank, audit its per-domain balance yourself rather than trusting the headline, keep the mock unseen until late, and hold one separate unseen layer such as iatroX to measure transfer. Judge readiness on unseen accuracy and stable pacing, not on the share of 500 questions you have ticked off.
FAQ
Is OccuMed Exam Prep enough for DOccMed on its own? For the MCQ knowledge component it can take a first-time candidate a long way, given around 500 explained items and an 80-question mock (vendor-reported, 21 July 2026). It is not enough on its own for the whole diploma, because the portfolio and viva sit outside any bank, and a finite, revisited set cannot stay unseen — most candidates should add the FOM portfolio material and one separate unseen measurement layer.
Which DOccMed component does OccuMed Exam Prep not reproduce well? The portfolio and the live viva. OccuMed sells guides and mock-viva sessions separately precisely because its bank cannot reproduce a workplace assessment you have personally conducted or an interactive oral with two examiners. It reproduces the MCQ knowledge component well; the applied and oral components need real experience and interactive rehearsal.
How many OccuMed Exam Prep questions should I complete per day for DOccMed? With roughly 500 items over a typical three- to six-month plan, 20 to 40 timed questions a day lets you cover the bank with room for spaced review, without racing to the end and burning it out early. Prioritise reading every explanation and logging misses by sub-topic over sheer speed, and reserve the 80-item mock for a late, unseen sitting.
When should I stop using OccuMed Exam Prep and move to mixed mocks? Move to mixed, full-length mocks once your per-domain accuracy is stable and you have begun recognising OccuMed items rather than reasoning through them — often after your first full pass. Keep the OccuMed 80-item mock and an unseen source for late simulation, and let timed mixed practice, not more first-pass questions, dominate the final weeks.
How should I combine OccuMed Exam Prep with iatroX without duplicating practice? Use OccuMed as your content-and-explanation bank and iatroX as your unseen measurement bank, and never re-test the same items across both. Learn and drill a domain on OccuMed, then measure transfer on fresh iatroX items you have not seen; the gap between the two scores is your recognition-versus-recall signal. That separation is the two-Q-bank rule and keeps your measured readiness honest.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 21 July 2026. Figures attributed to OccuMed Exam Prep — the 500-question count, the 80-item mock, prices, access periods and the SOM member discount — are vendor-reported and can change without notice; verify counts, access terms and price on occumedexamprep.com before relying on them. The DOccMed format was verified on fom.ac.uk, which publishes no full specimen paper. Occupational-medicine content, including any medicines detail, should be checked against current UK legislation, the SmPC/eMC and NICE and CKS guidance rather than a memorised source. Disclosure: iatroX operates a UK question bank and could be seen as competing with OccuMed Exam Prep; we have confined iatroX's role to unseen transfer and measurement and make no claim that it is a dedicated DOccMed bank or a viva simulator. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: Faculty of Occupational Medicine — DOccMed regulations and example questions — fom.ac.uk; OccuMed Exam Prep — question bank, pricing and viva services — occumedexamprep.com; Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score; question-bank completion is not coverage; iatroX comparison hub — https://www.iatrox.com/compare.