Best Apps for Medical Students in the UK (2026)
Most UK best apps lists are years old or written by one of the apps. This one is organised by the job you need on the wards and for the UKMLA: placement reference, UKMLA question banks, retention tools, and practising patients.
For each app we tell you what you get free without a card and whether it runs on iPhone, Android or web, with prices checked October 2026. If you only want AI tools, we keep those separate in our AI-only tool roundup.
What's the best app for UK medical students?
Short stack: BNF + BNFC app for prescribing and interactions, MDCalc for bedside scores, BMJ Best Practice via your NHS OpenAthens for summaries, one UKMLA question bank such as PassMedicine or Quesmed, and Anki for spaced recall. That covers clinics, on-calls, and revision without clutter.
The first three are free to a UK student on placement. Pin them to your home screen. Install them early, because in clinics and on nights you do not want to be digging through folders while a SHO waits and the ward round moves on. These are the ones you'll actually open on ward rounds and in teaching.
You'll probably pay for one UKMLA question bank at most. Pick either PassMedicine or Quesmed and stick with it, rather than splitting your time across two sets of stems. Depth beats breadth here, especially once you're revisiting flags and building a marked list. One bank, done well, will carry you through placements and the UKMLA mock season.
The fifth slot in your setup is practising talking to patients, which we cover further down. Real, timed reps. If you have one gap in your stack, it's likely this.
Placement apps: what each answers on the ward
BNF + BNFC
Drug questions on the ward get answered fastest here. Get the BNF + BNFC app on iPhone, seller Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and on Android. It is free for UK-based people working or training for the NHS, and it works offline.
NICE CKS
Short primary care summaries to anchor your first plan. It is open to individuals in the UK for personal or educational use, and you can access it on the web when you need a concise overview between patients.
MDCalc
Scores and calculators for day to day risk and decision support. It is free on iPhone with free registration, on Android and on the web, and MDCalc says it is used by millions of clinicians.
BMJ Best Practice
Condition topics from diagnosis onwards, helpful when the registrar asks for your plan. Free to NHS staff and students on placement through OpenAthens, with iPhone and Android apps that work offline once you are logged in. Without that access, the app offers a 7 day trial only.
Calculators and summaries support thinking on the ward, they do not replace your team’s judgement.
UKMLA AKT question banks: PassMedicine, Quesmed, Capsule
Every UK graduating student has to pass the MLA, an applied knowledge test, the AKT, and a clinical and professional skills assessment, the CPSA, before joining the register. You can check what it covers on the GMC's MLA page.
PassMedicine
Finals and UKMLA package with over 12,000 SBA and EMQ questions, includes OSCE resource and PSA questions. 4 months £15, 6 months £20, 9 months £25, 12 months £30 as of October 2026. Free demo, no card mentioned. Runs in the browser, no store app confirmed on its pages. See PassMedicine's finals package.
Quesmed
Covers UKMLA, MRCP, MSRA and UCAT. Free to download on iPhone and Android with offline mode, but the bank is paid. UK App Store in-app prices as of October 2026, from Quesmed's App Store listing: UKMLA Qbank £14.99 a month, £29.99 for 6 months, £39.99 a year, or the UKMLA bundle £19.99 monthly or £59.99 a year.
Capsule
Case based, 700+ cases and 3,700 questions mapped to the MLA, web and app with offline support. Personal licence £120 a year as of October 2026, though your medical school may already provide it. Details on buying or checking access sit on Capsule's access page.
Geeky Medics
Its app includes MLA AKT questions and 35,000+ free questions.
Pick one bank, finish it, do not stack three. If you are choosing between the big two, here are the two banks side by side with what changes in practice. If you want LLM tools that help with stems and recall, we keep a current list under AI help for the UKMLA.
Retention: Anki and spaced repetition without burning out
Spaced repetition earns its keep when placements get busy, which is why Anki belongs on any shortlist of the best apps for medical students UK. Cards resurface before you forget them, so the things you need to practise recall on stop leaking away.
Anki on Windows, Mac and Linux is free, AnkiDroid on Android is free, and AnkiWeb sync is free. AnkiMobile on iPhone costs £24.99 as of October 2026, the only paid version, and the download starts at Anki.
If you don’t want to build decks, the Geeky Medics app offers 2,500+ free flashcards that cover common exam and ward topics. Handy on a bus between sites when you need 10 quiet minutes.
Set daily reviews to a load you'll actually keep up during placement weeks, not a fantasy target that burns you out and then gets abandoned for the rest of the block. Make cards from misses. From questions you got wrong, and from cases that surprised you on take. Suspend low value or bloated cards rather than delete, so they don't vanish forever.
From what I can tell, the habit beats the settings. I could be wrong about this, but the students who keep Anki useful run small, regular reviews through term time, not heroic weekend marathons after three days of silence.
Practising patients before you meet them
Geeky Medics
Free OSCE guides and articles live on the website for anyone to read. The app packs 200+ OSCE guides, 1,300+ OSCE scenarios, and 900+ AI patients you can talk to by text, voice or video, plus AI examiner feedback and group practice for running stations with friends. It is the broadest OSCE resource on this list. Free to download, premium content needs an annual subscription, with in-app purchases listed at £4.99 and £14.99 on the UK App Store as of October 2026. Runs on iPhone via the Geeky Medics app, and the written guides are on the web.
Diagnosica
An AI clinical simulator where you take a history from a video AI patient by voice or text, order investigations and view results and imaging, commit to a diagnosis and a management plan, then get a scorecard with competency scores and teaching points after every case, free tier included. The two-minute quick case gives one line from the patient and five clues to keep a daily streak, and there are weekly leagues. Runs on iPhone, Android and the web. Free tier with no card, every case written and signed off by a doctor. Limits, so you do not waste time, in the same breath as the pitch: no physical examination practice, it is a general clinical-reasoning simulator not mapped to any exam’s mark sheet. It doesn't give advice about real patients, and it's not a diagnostic system. Treat every output as educational.
If you need a no-app fallback between patients, try this method for practising histories on your own.
Practise history taking daily Practise a history with an AI patient and get a scorecard, free tier, no card. Start a case free
Which of these does my medical school already pay for?
Several will already be free to you on NHS placement. Expect the BNF app and BMJ Best Practice through an NHS OpenAthens login, and some schools also buy case resources like Capsule. Access routes vary by school and trust, so check your library pages and ask before entering any card details.
At Oxford, clinical students ask the library for an OpenAthens (med student) account that unlocks nationally purchased NHS resources, then create a personal BMJ Best Practice account for the app. The library page walks you through an OpenAthens student account.
Elsewhere, some schools route access through the university or the host trust library. In my experience, schools differ, so email the library or check the VLE before you pay for anything you might already have.
The BNF app is free for NHS users in the UK for non-commercial use. Capsule says students may already have access through their school, so confirm entitlement with your programme team.
A Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 stack
Year 3
- BNF + BNFC, your drug and paediatrics reference for ward rounds and pharmacy queries, used daily from week one.
- MDCalc, calculators for common risk scores and clinical formulas you will meet on take and in clinics.
- BMJ Best Practice via OpenAthens, concise topic summaries through your OpenAthens login for quick refreshers before seeing patients.
- Anki, spaced repetition that turns today’s teaching points into long term recall during placements.
Year 4
- One question bank, PassMedicine or Quesmed, started early at a slow pace so habits bed in before the push.
- Geeky Medics, OSCE guides and checklists to structure histories and presentations when you’re practising with a friend.
- A case simulator, to practise taking focused histories and committing to differentials between ward days.
- BNF + BNFC, still pinned for drug checks and paediatric edge cases that crop up on firms.
Year 5
- In UKMLA year, finish the one bank you picked, close gaps with targeted blocks, then stop switching and review errors.
- Keep Anki light, protect clinical exposure, and make space to read around cases you actually see.
- Rehearse stations with friends and practise talking to patients out loud every day you’re on site.
- Start looking at what FY1s rely on next, and set up the FY1 app kit before shadowing starts.
FAQ
What are the best free apps for medical students in the UK?
Start with BNF and BNFC, MDCalc, BMJ Best Practice via OpenAthens, Anki on desktop and Android, and the Geeky Medics free guides, questions and flashcards. That mix covers prescribing, risk scores, concise clinical overviews and spaced repetition, with practical learning content you can dip into on a ward round or on the bus.
What are the best Android apps for medical students?
All the above run on Android. That means BNF and BNFC, MDCalc, BMJ Best Practice and AnkiDroid, which is free. Quesmed is available too. Geeky Medics has native apps on iOS and Android. PassMedicine runs in the browser, so you can use it on an Android phone without installing anything.
Do I need to pay for a question bank for the UKMLA?
No, you do not need to pay for a bank to sit the UKMLA. In practice, a paid bank is the one purchase most students make because the volume and explanations help structure revision. PassMedicine’s cheapest finals plan is £15 for 4 months as of October 2026, which is a common entry point.
Is the BNF app free for medical students?
Yes. The BNF app, with BNFC alongside it, is free. Access is limited to UK-based people working or training for the NHS. Once you have it set up it works offline, so you can check doses and interactions on wards where reception cuts out.
Add patient practice now Drop a quick patient practice slot into your study stack, voice or text. Try a free case
