Institution: NHS England — Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection (NHSE/MDRS)
Programme: Medical and Dental Specialty Recruitment (Multiple Mini Interviews)
Assessment Type: Multiple Mini Interview (MMI), 2–4 stations per applicant
Delivery: Fully Remote, via Qpercom’s Video Interviewing and Digital Scoring (VIDS) platform
Scale: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — 7,225 applicants across 69 interview events in Year 1, rising to 26,390 scoresheets across 71 professional groups in Year 2
7,225 applicants interviewed in the pilot. 26,390 scoresheets submitted the year after. A satisfaction rate of 86.7% that held steady as the system scaled nationwide.
When NHS England’s Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection unit (NHSE/MDRS) set out to move Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs) online, it wasn’t a one-off migration — it was the start of a two-year programme of continuous, data-led improvement. Two peer-reviewed studies, published in the European Journal of Business and Management Research in 2023 and 2024, tracked exactly what it took to deliver national-scale remote MMIs on Qpercom’s Video Interviewing and Digital Scoring (VIDS) platform: first proving the model worked, then optimising it at scale.
What Is a Multiple Mini Interview?
The Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) is a structured selection method built from a series of short, independently scored stations, each assessing a different competency — communication, ethical reasoning, empathy, teamwork. Pioneered by Eva et al. (2004) and modelled on the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), MMIs are widely recognised as a fairer, more reliable alternative to traditional panel interviews, reducing individual examiner bias by testing every candidate across multiple independent encounters.
NHSE/MDRS has used MMIs to recruit medical and dental professionals across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland since 2012. In 2023, that process moved onto VIDS, enabling candidates, panellists and administrators to take part from wherever they were.
Where NHSE/MDRS Started
Before VIDS, delivering MMIs at NHS scale meant physical assessment centres, travel costs for applicants and assessors, and the logistical strain of coordinating dozens of specialties across four nations. Rolling out a fully remote alternative was not simply a case of switching to video calls — it meant building a support model robust enough to carry thousands of high-stakes interviews without a single point of failure.
Year One: Proving the Model (January–May 2023)
Over 13 interview weeks, 64 professional groups ran 69 interview events, putting 7,225 applicants through MMIs entirely on VIDS. The support model built for that pilot included a pre-interview diagnostic tool, live web-chat support (activated only when an applicant failed a diagnostic check), a bypass option for applicants with poor connections, and a Slack escalation command for agents needing to fast-track urgent cases.
The results exceeded expectations:
- 86.7% applicant satisfaction (an average rating of 4.33/5, SD 0.08)
- Only 9.3% of applicants required support — below the 10% projected
- 66 NHS troubleshooters and 9 administrators ran the process, with one administrator managing an average of 57 interviews per day
- 8 Qpercom support agents covered 142 technical bypasses around the clock
- 22 FAQs were added to the live-chat knowledge base based on real applicant queries
Between 25% (medical) and 17% (dental) of applicants reported some kind of issue during the pilot — mostly connection and audio problems — but prompt in-app status updates were rated helpful by 96% of medical and 87% of dental applicants. That feedback became the blueprint for Year Two.
Year Two: Optimising at Scale (July 2023–July 2024)
With the model proven, the focus shifted from “does this work” to “how far can this scale.” Over the following twelve months, 71 professional groups submitted 26,390 self-assessment and interview scoresheets through VIDS — nearly twice the throughput of Year One (1.98x more efficient by NHSE’s own comparison).
To get there, the support process itself was redesigned:
- A self-bypass request feature let applicants with connection issues route straight to an administrator, rather than waiting on the support queue
- An applicant status feature in the interview monitor removed the need for a manual 15-minute “agent check,” freeing administrators to prepare for upcoming candidates instead
- Support coverage was restructured around two shift-based agents plus a 24/7 team, rather than a single flat rota
- An Observer view made it easier for invigilators and observers to navigate the platform during live interviews
The result was a leaner, faster support operation:
| Year One (Pilot) | Year Two (Optimised) | |
|---|---|---|
| Applicants / scoresheets | 7,225 applicants | 26,390 scoresheets |
| Interview events / groups | 69 events, 64 groups | 71 professional groups, year-round |
| Bypass options | 1 (administrator-managed) | 3-stage self-bypass flow |
| Manual agent checks | Required every 15 minutes | Removed — automated status feature |
| Average support response time | Not separately tracked | 2 min 9 sec overall (1 min 12 sec in hours, 3 min 56 sec out of hours) |
| Support conversations | Not separately tracked | 920 conversations, 629 unique users |
| Relative throughput | Baseline | ~1.98x more applicants processed |
Even as volume nearly doubled, 64% of support queries were now arriving days before the interview — rather than in the pressure of the event itself — a sign that applicants were arriving better prepared and self-serving more of their own technical setup ahead of time.
Why Continuous Support Still Mattered
Scaling up didn’t remove the need for real-time, human support — it changed its shape. Some NHS trusts’ firewall restrictions meant clinicians often had to interview from home on personal devices, and query patterns still spiked around specific specialties and specific weekdays (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday saw the heaviest support demand). Audio issues — frequently tied to Bluetooth headsets — remained the single most common technical query.
Rather than treating that as a fixed cost, NHSE/MDRS and Qpercom used it as a continuous feedback loop: every query logged fed directly into the next round of platform and process refinement, from the self-bypass flow to the Observer view feature.
The Difference It Made
- Eliminated most manual, time-boxed “agent checks,” freeing administrator time during live interview days
- Cut escalation time with a direct self-bypass path, rather than routing every issue through the support queue
- Maintained high satisfaction (86.7%) while nearly doubling the number of applicants processed
- Gave administrators and observers a clearer, purpose-built view of live interviews rather than relying on general-purpose video conferencing tools
- Built a growing FAQ and support knowledge base directly from real applicant queries, reducing repeat issues year over year
Key Takeaway
Delivering high-stakes recruitment interviews remotely, at national scale, isn’t a one-time technology switch — it’s an ongoing process of measurement and refinement. NHSE/MDRS’s two-year programme with Qpercom shows what that looks like in practice: a rigorously supported pilot that hits an 86.7% satisfaction rate, followed by a second year that nearly doubles throughput without sacrificing that satisfaction, by using real support data to simplify the process at every step. For any organisation running high-volume, high-stakes remote assessment, the lesson is the same — the platform matters, but so does the discipline of continuously optimising the support built around it.
Read the full research papers:
- Support Efficiency for Remote Multiple Mini Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection Interviews for NHS Nationwide (2023)
- Process Optimisation for Time Series Interviews and Digital Scoring in Medical Dental Recruitment and Selection for NHS-England (2024)
