GPAtlasMRCGP · Applied Knowledge Test
Admin is 10% of the AKT, and half of it is pure recall
Organisation and administration is one of the two smallest domains on the paper, and it is the one people leave until last because it is not clinical. That is exactly why it is worth a day. A large part of it is lists, and lists can be learned in an afternoon.
Admin and statistics are 20% of the paper between them. There is a statistics day page too.
Of the AKT is organisation and admin, under the RCGP blueprint of 80% clinical medicine, 10% evidence and data interpretation and 10% organisation and admin.
The real paper is 160 questions in 160 minutes, and so is each of our three mock exams.
Chapters in AKT Compass. Organisation and administration is one of them in its own right, with its own questions.
Why this domain is the most winnable on the paper
Clinical medicine is 80% of the AKT and it is the whole of general practice, so there is no day that finishes it. Admin is different. It is a bounded body of rules, most of it written down in one place by whoever issued it, and a good half of it does not change from one year to the next.
The other reason it is winnable is that most candidates do not give it a proper session. It is not clinical, so it never feels urgent, and it is dull to read. Both are true. Neither is a reason, because it is the same 10% as any other 10% on the paper and it is far quicker to bank.
The honest split is roughly half and half. The forms, the driving standards, the entitlement rules and the prescribing rules are recall. Confidentiality, capacity, safeguarding and candour are judgement, and judgement is learned by working through questions and reading why the answer is the answer, not by rereading a list.
What comes up, and which half it belongs to
| Topic | What the questions ask | How it behaves |
|---|---|---|
| Fit notes and sickness certification | Who may issue one, what it can and cannot say, when a patient certifies their own absence, and what happens when someone is fit for some work. | Recall. Learn it once and it stays learned. |
| Death certification and cremation | Which deaths you may certify, which must be referred to the coroner, and who signs what. | Recall, with a referral decision on the end of it that is genuinely useful in practice. |
| DVLA standards | Whether a condition means stopping, notifying, or neither, and how the rules differ for group 2 drivers. | Recall, and a long list. Worth its own sitting, because it is a reliable source of marks. |
| Benefits and entitlement | Which benefit fits which situation, what your role in the process is, and who is entitled to NHS care. | Recall. Unfamiliar rather than hard. |
| Notifiable disease and public health duties | Which conditions you must notify, to whom, and how quickly. | Recall. |
| Prescribing governance and controlled drugs | What a valid prescription must carry, the extra rules for controlled drugs, and who may prescribe what. | Recall, with a judgement edge on requests you should refuse. |
| Data protection and access to records | Who may see a record, how a request is handled, and what you may withhold. | Mostly recall, and the exceptions are judgement. |
| Confidentiality and disclosure | When you may disclose without consent, when you must, and what you tell the patient about it. | Judgement. This is the classic admin question and it is not memorisable. |
| Consent and capacity | Assessing capacity, acting in someone's best interests, and children who can and cannot consent for themselves. | Judgement, on top of a small amount of recall. |
| Safeguarding | Your duty when you are worried about a child or an adult at risk, who you tell, and what you do when the family objects. | Judgement, and the questions are deliberately uncomfortable. |
| Complaints, candour and significant events | How a complaint is handled, what being open after harm requires, and how a significant event differs from an audit. | Judgement, with a process to know. |
| Professional duties and Good Medical Practice | Probity, raising a concern about a colleague, conflicts of interest, and where the limits of your own competence sit. | Judgement. Read the source rather than a summary of it. |
| The GP contract, QOF and NHS structure | How practices are funded and held to account, and who does what across the system. | Recall, and quicker than it looks once you have seen it laid out. |
What the day actually looks like
Start with the forms you put your name to
Sickness certification and death certification. You already meet both in the job, so this is the fastest hour of the day, and it turns vague familiarity into the exact rule the question is testing.
Then take the lists in one sitting
Driving, notifiable disease, entitlement, prescription rules. These are the marks that are simply there for anyone who sat down with them, and they are the reason a day on admin pays.
Then the law you apply rather than recite
Capacity, consent, children consenting for themselves, and confidentiality. Read these, then immediately do questions on them, because the exam tests the decision and not the definition.
Then the practice and the system around you
Complaints and candour, significant events, safeguarding duties, data protection, the contract and QOF. This is the part most people have absorbed unevenly, so it is worth checking rather than assuming.
Then do questions, and reread only what you missed
Admin questions are usually a short scenario with one correct action. Once you have done a run of them, the recall half is finished and you can spend the rest of your time on judgement.
How AKT Compass covers it
Organisation and administration is one of the 20 chapters and it is built like the others. It is not an appendix.
Its own teaching notes
Written for this paper: what the rule actually says, the detail worth knowing, and where candidates slip. They cover the forms you sign, benefits and entitlement, driving and travel and the screening programmes, confidentiality, consent, capacity and safeguarding, the NHS, the contract and running a practice, and prescribing governance, ethics and the consultation.
Its own questions, in both formats
The real paper uses single best answer and multiple best answer, which gives six options with two right, and so do we. Admin questions sit in the question bank under their own chapter and they appear in the mock exams at the proportion the blueprint gives them.
A citation under each rule
Every teaching note carries a citation you can open and check yourself, and the date we last reviewed it. We check every citation against the body that issued it, not against somebody's summary of it, and admin rules change, so we keep them current.
Nothing stands alone
Every question is anchored to a teaching point, so a question you get wrong leads straight to the teaching it came from, and nothing in the teaching goes untested.
Three mock exams
Each is 160 questions in 160 minutes, the real paper's own format, so you find out whether the admin marks are actually landing when you are tired and against the clock.
The same rules you use at work
This is the one domain where exam preparation is directly useful on Monday morning. The certification, driving and disclosure rules are the ones you reach for in clinic.
The AKT tab on the plans page shows what is open to buy today.
Common questions
How much of the AKT is admin?
Organisation and administration is 10% of the Applied Knowledge Test. The RCGP blueprint is 80% clinical medicine, 10% evidence and data interpretation and 10% organisation and admin, so admin and statistics are 20% of the marks between them.
Is AKT admin just memorising?
About half of it is, and that half is the reason this domain is worth a day. The forms you sign, the driving rules, the entitlement rules and the prescribing rules are lists, and lists can be learned. The other half, confidentiality, capacity, safeguarding and candour, is judgement, and that is learned by working through questions and reading why the answer is the answer.
What comes up in the admin questions?
Fit notes and sickness certification, death certification, the DVLA standards, benefits and entitlement, safeguarding, consent and capacity, confidentiality and disclosure, complaints and significant events, professional duties and Good Medical Practice, the GP contract and QOF, prescribing governance and controlled drugs, and data protection.
Why do trainees leave admin until last?
Because it is not clinical, so it never feels urgent, and because it is dull to read. Both are true and neither is a reason. It is the same 10% as any other 10% on the paper, and it is far quicker to bank.
How does AKT Compass cover admin?
It has its own chapter, one of the 20, with teaching notes written for this paper, its own questions in both AKT item formats, and a citation under each rule that you can open and check yourself. Every question is anchored to a teaching point, so a question you get wrong leads straight to the teaching it came from.
Being straight with you
- GPAtlas is not affiliated with or endorsed by the RCGP, and this is not the exam. We describe the blueprint and the format as the College publishes them, and you should confirm both on rcgp.org.uk before you book.
- Clearing admin does not pass the AKT. It is 10% of the paper. The clinical 80% is still the work, and nobody can promise you a pass.
- Admin rules are the ones that change most often, and our notes carry the date we last reviewed each of them. Where a decision matters for a real patient, go to the source we cite rather than to us.
- Half of this domain is judgement, and we are not going to tell you that judgement can be memorised in a day. What a day does is finish the recall half completely and start the other one properly.
- If you want the other quick one, statistics is the same size. That is the AKT statistics day page.
Give it a day
The chapter, the questions and the citations are all in AKT Compass, and they are joined up, so a question you miss takes you to the rule that explains it.