Medicine leads Russell Group in academic and wellbeing support, NSS 2025 shows

Imperial’s MBBS and BMB programmes achieved improvements in almost every survey theme.

Ranking first against all other London medical schools in every National Student Survey (NSS) theme, the Imperial College School of Medicine's (ICSM) MBBS claimed first place in five themes across the Russell Group:  Academic support, Assessment & feedback, Organisation & management, Student voice, and Mental health & wellbeing. 

The MBBS programme ranked in the top three across all other domains within the Russell Group. 

The results showed particular improvement for student satisfaction in three areas: Organisation & management, up 6.3 percentage points on its 2024 figure; Learning opportunities, up 5.2 percentage points to 90.3%, and Academic support, which rose 3.7 points to 93.9%.  

Professor Amir Sam, Head of ICSM, said, “We are delighted to see these positive results from this year’s survey, and to have such an endorsement from our graduating class. 

“As many educators will attest, it is extremely challenging with student feedback to achieve numbers higher than 85%, as well as to maintain that level, so to see that our students are consistently reporting an education and university experience of such high quality with us is an incredible achievement.” 
 
Curriculum evolution 

Imperial’s MBBS graduates this year are the first to experience ICSM's reimagined curriculum in full. Its spiral approach uses building-block modules which expand on the previous year’s learning, with skills domains that run through all six years of the programme, including the intercalated BSc in the fourth year. 

Hands-on, clinical experience is combined with scientific knowledge throughout, developing skills and understanding in real-life, patient-facing contexts as well as in lab and world-class research environments.  

Designed to best support future doctors for an ever-changing landscape in the NHS, the programme includes a range of elements more specifically to embed preparedness for practice. 

This includes virtual reality simulations that provide additional exposure to critical scenarios - such as cardiac arrest - that are challenging to guarantee during timetabled teaching or clinical placements.

“The positive feedback given here is a fantastic endorsement from our inaugural cohort of students from the new curriculum, clearly indicating that our ethos and approach is the right one,” added Professor Sam. 

“These results show the care we take in hearing and responding to the individual stories and needs of our students is paying off.” 

Strength in science 

The School’s three-year BSc Medical Biosciences (BMB) programme also claimed the top spot against other London schools in all but one survey theme. 

With an impressive increase of 7 percentage points in the Student voice theme, the programme also received strongly improved feedback for Academic support, which increased by more than 5 percentage points to 92.7%. 

Professor Alison McGregor, Director of Undergraduate Science and Head of Medical Biosciences, said, “We are delighted that the hard work of our committed BMB teaching, administration and academic team has been endorsed in so many areas by our final-year students.” 

Other achievements for the programme included Organisation & management rising 3.5 percentage points, Teaching on my course climbing to 90.%5 satisfaction, and Learning resources gaining 2.5 points on its 2024 figure, reaching 92%. 

“This year we celebrate our sixth cohort of BMB graduates, and it is wonderful to see the programme go from strength to strength. We are particularly pleased to have topped the London tables in nearly every theme, and to feature significantly across themes the Russell Group table – it’s wonderful after so much effort, collaboration and commitment to have our students find such satisfaction in their education and experience, and to see the programme’s impact and successes expanding year on year. 

“A huge thank you to the students that fed back to us this year, and to our staff for their unwavering contributions to this amazing programme,” said Professor McGregor. 

Shared success 

The two programmes shared improvement in their figures for the newer survey questions on Mental health & wellbeing and Freedom of expression. 

Each took first place in London and second across the Russell Group for Freedom of expression, with BMB ranking second nationally and MBBS third. 

The MBBS took the top spot in London and in the Russell Group for Mental health & wellbeing, while BMB showed particular improvement for this question, with an impressive 9-point jump to 90.4%, placing fourth nationally. 

Mr James Wild, Head of the School of Medicine Secretariat, which oversees the quality, governance and student experience mechanisms for the School, said, “It is hugely encouraging to see positive results for both these programmes, and particularly in these two questions and in the Student voice theme. It is both valuable and rewarding to know that our students are benefitting from the support mechanisms and overall ethos of ICSM, where we aim for every student to feel welcomed, valued and supported.” 

The School continues its strong emphasis on student voice and engagement, encouraging students through a range of channels to put forward their thoughts, experiences and ideas. 

“As well as evidencing the huge amount of hard work that goes into our offering to students, these results are testament to our students’ engagement. In taking the opportunities to share their feedback, and collaborating with us to make change and improvement to the student experience, they make a huge impact on what we do and how we do it," noted Mr Wild.

“We are grateful to them for their input, as always, and look forward to working with them again through the year ahead.”