Insight into College of West Anglia’s Access to Medicine (HE) Course
Last updated 16/01/2026 at 14:03
Committing to an Access to Medicine course but want detailed insight? I’ll be explaining why College of West Anglia is the most successful provider in the UK, based on real data, outcomes and a small, but necessary dose of informed opinion.
Why is College of West Anglia the most successful?
🥇The highest progression into medicine rate
College of West Anglia’s Access to Medicine course was established in 1993 and has since sent hundreds of students to medical school. Students have received offers from Cambridge, King’s College London, Edinburgh and Bristol; some of the most globally prestigious universities. Between 1993 – 2002 the progression rate into medicine increased to 85% and is now ~95%, the highest out of all UK course providers.
💸 The only college that provides financial support
One criticism of providers is their tendency to overlook the financial implications of studying an access course. Realistically, mature students must reduce their working hours to attend classes, introducing a small but inconvenient problem known as loss of income. Some colleges, in an attempt to be helpful, run their programmes 2-3 days per week allowing some level of flexibility to coexist with employment.
At present, College of West Anglia remains the only provider to offer the financial support you see below:
- Accommodation £4,100 – Contribution to rental costs if you re-locate to the area.
- Travel Bursary £1,500 – Contribution towards travel costs.
- Consumables £250 – Contribution towards stationary or electronic learning devices.
- Stationary £30 – Can be used towards any stationary (pens, notepads etc) required.
- Printing Credit £30 – Can be used towards any printed materials you need.
- UCAS Payment £27 – You can be reimbursed for your UCAS application.
- Interviews – Contribution towards any travel to university interviews or open days.
- Financial award letter may be used as proof to receive a free UCAT examination.
- Letter confirming student status so you do not pay council tax.
🩺 The only FE college to teach clinical skills & have access to an Anatomage dissection table
Medicine-adjacent extracurriculars are included, in part, to prevent the experience from feeling like a bleak reprise of your teenage years. Clinical skills sessions, simulating training and virtual dissections are designed to produce genuine, defensible work experience and give you a flavour of what medical school is really like. Continue reading to find out more.
Course structure and content
Courses approved by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) follow a similar structure with minor variations. Academically, you are taught A-Level (Level 3) content just as any other applicant to medicine.
What you are not asked to do is inhale the entirety of a two-year A-Level syllabus in 9 months. Instead, the curriculum is tailored only to what is relevant to medicine (e.g no plant biology). Below, is a breakdown of the units and modules, graded and ungraded alike to give you a better understanding of what is to come:
Graded subjects
Human Biology
Unit 1: Introduction to Biology
- Biological organisms, structure and function of organelles.
- Biological molecules
- Assessed through a 1.5 hour closed book exam
- Biological molecules and enzymes
- Biochemical respiration and anaerobic respiration
- Stem cells
- Mitosis & Meiosis
- Inheritance and Genes
- Assessed through a practical exam followed by a written assignment
- 1.5 hour closed book exam
- Respiratory
- Cardiovasular
- Nervous System
- Endocrine
- Gastrointestinal
- Immune System
- Oxygen Dissociation Curves
- Assessed through a 2.5 hour closed book exam
Chemistry
Unit 1: Introduction to Chemistry
- Atomic structure, chemical formulae, equations + periodic table,
- Ionisation energy, mass spectrometry and more.
- Assessed through a 1.5 hour closed-book exam.
- Ionic, covalent and electronegativity bonding
- The ideal gas equation, moles,
- Infrared spectroscopy and more.
- Assessed through a practical followed by an assignment
- 1.5 hour closed book exam
- Kinetics, equilibrium, acids and bases.
- Le Chateliers Principle, Hess’s law and more. Y
- Assessed through a practical followed by a written assignment
- 1.5 hour closed book exam
Medical Physics
Physics is covered a little differently, there are 9 units in total taking around 8 months to cover. You’ll cover the following topics: (i) Human movement & energy conversions; (ii) Pressure; (iii) Radioactivity; (iv) Waves; (v) Light and the human eye; (vi) Sound & Hearing; (vii) Principles of Electricity and (viii) Medical Imaging. You’ll be assessed at the end of the year with a practical and a closed-book exam.
Research Project
You’ll be asked to complete a research project due towards the end of the year. It can be on any topic you’re interested in and you can design it in any way you’d like. This is similar to an Extended Primary Qualification (EPQ) which is a dissertation created on the basis of independent research. Research is incredibly important throughout medical school and during your career as a doctor so it’s beneficial to be given the exposure, resources and opportunity to complete research. You may even get your paper published!
Ungraded subjects
Epidemiology
Covers patterns of human disease from Cholera to HIV/AIDS. You’ll be required to complete an assignment on a topic given to you (in 2022 this was HIV/AIDS and its prevalence around the globe). You will also be required to complete an end-of-year exam graded at pass/fail.
Numerical Data and Statistics
Covers basic Maths GCSE content all the way through to Level 7 Statistics. These classes cover various statistical methods you’ll see at medical school such as Pearson’s Coefficient, Spearman’s Rank and T-Test’s; all of which you’ll use during your own research project towards the end of the year (and during medical school).
Professional Behaviours and HE Study Skills
As a medical student (and doctor) you’ll have your own portfolio where you’ll document your reflections for your own professional development. During the course you will have dedicated time to focus on reflective writing to emulate the portfolio-style journal to help prepare you for life at medical school. During study skills, you’ll prepare presentations and an essay (non-graded) on medical ethics on a topic of your choice to showcase your writing ability.
Dissection & Clinical Skills
Clinical Skills
At some point in medical school you will start hearing the term clinical skills. This refers to your ability to translate medical knowledge in a practical setting. Examples include taking blood, examining patients and interpreting investigations e.g X-rays.
These skills are assessed via OSCEs Observed Structured Clinical Examinations to ensure you are competent and safe to perform these procedures on patients. The College of West Anglia runs clinical skill sessions and mock OCSEs allowing students to gain early exposure to this format. The glaringly obvious benefit is that the sessions held here are identical to medical school examinations and do not feel like an ambush once you’re in medical school.
Clinical skills I learned at CWA:
- NEWS2 (National Early Warning Score) interpretation and how to use it
- X-Ray interpretation – find the location and structures and how to interpret them
- Chest auscultations – how to perform them, the rationale and respiratory decline
- Airway management – signs/symptoms of full/partial obstruction and how to manage
- Abdominal assessment – auscultate, palpate and percuss the four quadrants
- Nasogastric tube insertions – insertions and how to identify if inserted correctly
- Intramuscular / subcutaneous injections – perform injections in both sites and rationale
- Venepuncture – perform venipuncture using various needles such as butterfly’s
- Major haemorrhage – group scenario, learn to control bleeding and perform ABCDE
- Spirometry – perform spiromtery and peak flow test and learn how to interpret
Anatomage Dissections and Virtual Reality
Medical schools around the world continue to rely heavily on dissections during pre-clinical years, largely because the human body cannot fully be understood in two dimensions. This is why anatomy teaching has historically involved cadavers and why modern education has invested so heavily in technologies that approximate the same experience without the foul smell of formaldehyde. Which swiftly brings us to the College of West Anglia, the only FE college with access to an Anatomage Table – a high-resolution 3D virtual dissection system that allows you to peel back the layers of the human body.
In addition to peeling back human flesh like an onion, the college uses virtual reality and high-fidelity simulation mannequins to emulate clinical scenarios (usually because letting real patients be your first attempt is considered poor form). You can expect to see the mannequins present with a variety of symptoms ranging from heart rates that are incompatible with life or a urine output rate associated with industrial plumbing.
- Laerdal SimMan 3G+ replicates physiological functions such as breathing + convulsions
- TraumaMan simulates treatment of a trauma patient including haemorrhage
- SimMom simulates labour, including manual delivery, shoulder dystocia + haemorrhage
How many days a week will I be at college?
Access courses require a physical presence usually 2-4 days per week. CWA realise that mature learners make up a large proportion of the cohort and therefore tailored their course to be delivered over 2.5 days per week (one half day and two full days).
Short note: if you are a recipient of funding… you must ensure your attendance is as close to 100% as possible. If you drop below the minimum threshold you run the risk of withdrawal.
Below is a timetable from 2023:
Course Intensity
Irrespective of public opinion, access courses are just as relentlessly unforgiving as A-Levels and definitely not the easy route into medicine.
In my humble opinion (as someone who has actually completed the course) the hardest part to adjust to was the intensity. The sheer volume of content in a such a short amount of time was the most difficult aspect to grasp but for good reason, to ensure the same academic standard as other medical applicants.
I had the following (subject to change):
8 closed-book exams
1 open-book exam
4 practical exams with additional 1500 word reports each
1 study skills essay
1 study skills oral presentation
Reflective learning journal
Research paper 3000 words
Averaged out, this amounts to roughly three exams or assignments due every month on top of classes and self-directed study. As the astute reader may have already grasped, a healthy dose of stamina is required to cross this finish line. But, alas, not all is negative. It is possible to hold down a job, maintain some semblance of a social life and still achieve all distinctions.
SUCCESS STORIES
from the COLLEGE OF WEST ANGLIA
Other resources
- Apply to CWA Access to Medicine Course
- From Finance to Medicine | Follow Awais’s Medicine Journey on TikTok
- Nurse Belinda – Access Course | Timetables, Modules and Intensity
- Rebecca Bradford – Access Course Q&A | Manchester
- Margaret Humphrey’s CWA experience
- Balancing work while studying on an Access Course
