The OET Exam for Healthcare Professionals: Format, Scoring and Grades
The OET is the English test healthcare regulators accept from clinicians who trained abroad. It is built around the work rather than around academic study: the tasks are the referral letters, discharge summaries and patient conversations of a working professional. Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment, a venture between Cambridge English (Aus) and Box Hill Institute, has owned it since 2013.
What follows is a reference sheet. It sets out the oet exam format, explains what a result actually contains, and shows what each regulator asks for. Every figure names the body that publishes it, and where a requirement differs by profession or by country the difference is shown rather than averaged into a single number.
How to read this sheet: Read the format section first if you have not booked a sitting, and the scoring section if you already hold a result. The regulator table at the foot is the part that decides an application.
What the OET exam format actually asks you to do
Four sub-tests make up the paper, and the split between them matters more than the running order. Listening is approximately 40 minutes long, runs on topics of generic healthcare interest, and is described by the awarding body as accessible to all candidates across all professions. Reading works across different types of text drawn from a variety of healthcare professions and subjects. Those two halves are common ground.
Writing and Speaking are where the oet exam format stops being general. Writing sets a task specific to your profession, a document of referral, advice, or a letter of transfer or discharge. Speaking is a role-play assessment, again specific to your profession. This is the whole design argument for the test: it assesses English in the situations the candidate will actually be in, not in a seminar room. It is also why an english test for healthcare professionals can be sat by a dietitian and a podiatrist on the same day and still be two different papers.
The test is delivered three ways, OET Test on Paper, OET Test on Computer, and OET@Home. Which one you sit affects how quickly you get a result: the awarding body states results are typically available within 6 days for the computer and at-home formats, and within 12 days for paper. If a registration deadline is close, that six-day difference is the decision.
OET exam scoring: what a result contains
A result carries an overall score together with individual scores for Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. Grades run from A at the top to E. The point that catches people out is that oet exam scoring is read per sub-test, not as an average: regulators set a floor for each of the four, and a single sub-test below its floor is enough to fail an application that otherwise looks strong.
On the numbers, this sheet is deliberately incomplete. The Nursing and Midwifery Council publishes grade B as 350–440, grade C+ as 300–340 and grade C as 250–290, and those three are quoted here because that regulator states them in writing. The rest of the A-to-E table lives in the awarding body's handbook and is not reproduced here. A band copied from a secondary source and left to age is the kind of figure that sends someone into the wrong exam sitting.
Read that way, oet exam scoring is less a mark out of 500 than four separate gates that all have to open. It is worth working out which of the four is your weakest long before the booking, because that is the one the scoring will turn on.
One further wrinkle worth knowing before you book: at least one regulator allows scores from two separate sittings to be combined, under published conditions. Whether the body you are applying to does is published by that body, not by the test provider, and this sheet prints it only where the regulator states it. If your first attempt misses on one sub-test only, that is what decides whether you resit everything or just that sub-test.
Which healthcare professionals the OET covers
An english test for healthcare professionals is only worth sitting if it knows what your profession actually does, which is why twelve of them have their own version of the profession-specific sub-tests. If yours is on the list, you sit tasks written for your work. If it is not, the test is not the right route, and the regulator will say which test it accepts instead.
The distinction is narrower than it first appears. Listening is shared, Reading is drawn from across the professions, and only Writing and Speaking change. So two candidates from different professions sit a largely identical paper with two tailored halves.
- Medicine
- Nursing
- Dentistry
- Dietetics
- Pharmacy
- Physiotherapy
- Podiatry
- Radiology
- Occupational Therapy
- Veterinary Science
- Optometry
- Speech Pathology
What each regulator requires
A requirement is a set of marks, one per sub-test, so it is set out here the way it is actually applied. A filled mark is a stated minimum; an empty one means this sheet has no figure it can stand behind.
| Regulator | Listening | Reading | Writing | Speaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nursing and Midwifery Council United Kingdom · nurses and midwives | B | B | C+ | B |
| General Medical Council United Kingdom · doctors | B | B | B | B |
| Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency Australia · regulated health professions | – | – | – | – |
- Nursing and Midwifery Council: accepts OET on Paper, OET on Computer and OET@Home, and publishes conditions under which scores from two sittings may be combined.
- General Medical Council: asks for the medicine version of the test and at least grade B in each testing area.
- Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency: accepts the OET, and states that changes to its minimum scores took effect on 23 April 2026. Read the current figure from the registration standard rather than from a secondary source, this one included.
The empty row is the honest one. The Australian regulator accepts the test and states that changes to its minimum scores took effect on 23 April 2026; since its current figures could not be read from the standard on the check date, no number is printed here. Cambridge English also names ECFMG, CGFNS and FMRAC among the bodies that accept the result, and there are more.
Common questions
Is the OET the same test for every profession?
Partly. Listening runs on topics of generic healthcare interest and is, in the awarding body’s words, accessible to all candidates across all professions. Reading draws on a variety of healthcare professions and subjects.
Writing and Speaking are the profession-specific halves. A nurse and a dentist sit different tasks, because the documents they write and the conversations they have are different.
How long do results take?
The awarding body states results are typically available within 6 days for the OET Test on Computer and OET@Home, and within 12 days for the OET Test on Paper.
Does a strong overall score make up for one weak sub-test?
Usually not, and this is the most expensive misreading of a result. Regulators set a minimum per sub-test. The Nursing and Midwifery Council, for example, asks for grade B in reading, listening and speaking and grade C+ in writing, four separate thresholds, not an average.
A candidate can hold a comfortable overall score and still be refused on one sub-test.
Which grade bands map to which scores?
The Nursing and Midwifery Council publishes grade B as 350 to 440, grade C+ as 300 to 340 and grade C as 250 to 290. Grades run from A at the top to E.
The remaining boundaries are published in the awarding body’s own handbook. They are not reproduced here, because a band printed from memory is worse than a band you look up.
Who owns and runs the OET?
Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment, a venture between Cambridge English (Aus) and Box Hill Institute, has owned the test since 2013.
Is this site connected to the OET or to any regulator?
No. These pages describe exams and requirements set by other organisations, and name the source of every figure so it can be checked at the source.