Offers, references, clearing and feedback

All offers will be made via Oriel by GP National Recruitment Office (GPNRO). Offers received in any other way, or outside of the process, will be deemed invalid. If you are made an offer, you will need to respond to this on Oriel.

Offers

Applicants will be ranked in a single national list based on their performance throughout the selection processes. Offers are made in rank order based on this national ranking.

Initial offers will be released by close of business on the first offer date published for the current round (see the recruitment timeline page). Please do not contact GPNRO about offers prior to this date, as it could delay the release.

You will be given 48 hours (exclusive of weekends) to respond to an offer and you have the option to accept, decline or hold. If you fail to respond to an offer within the 48-hour window you will be deemed to have declined the offer.

Only one offer can be held at any one time, across all specialty applications you have made in each round. If you are holding an offer and try to hold another, the original held post will be automatically declined on your behalf by Oriel.

Once you have accepted a post, you will not receive any further offers from any other specialty in this round (i.e. Oriel will automatically withdraw you from all other applications you have in the given recruitment round).

Offers that are declined will be reoffered in rank order to other applicants. If you choose to hold an offer, you can keep this offer held up until the hold deadline published for the current round (see the recruitment timeline page). Before this deadline, you will be required to go back into Oriel and make a final decision on the offer. Any offers still held when the deadline is reached will be deemed to have been declined and the system will automatically change your status to show that you have declined the post.

After the hold deadline has passed, any offers made will only have the option of accept or decline.

When actioning an offer, it is strongly recommended that applicants avoid using a mobile device or internet browsers that have reached the end of their product support lifecycle as these are unlikely to be supported.

Confirmation upon actioning an offer

Once you have actioned your offer, you will receive an automated confirmation message in Oriel and a secondary automated message will be sent to your registered email address. If you do not receive confirmation, log into your Oriel account to confirm if the offer action process was completed in its entirety.

Offer waiting or reserve list

Applicants that do not receive an offer when initial offers are made are considered to be on a ‘waiting or reserve list’. There are several factors that determine being on a waiting or reserve list including your breadth of selection of preferences, the number of posts available in your selection of preferences and, your overall performance in the recruitment and selection process as determined by your final rank.

Offers that are declined or rejected by applicants are re-offered to the next eligible applicants. Declined offers are recycled roughly every 48 to 72 hours and this process will continue until all posts have been accepted, or all options have been exhausted, after which no further offers will be made. If you do not receive in this round, you will need to re-apply in a subsequent round via Oriel.

Upgrading offers

If you rank highly enough to be made an offer, this will be made to the highest ranked Training Programme preference that is available when your final rank is reached. If this Training Programme offer is suitable for you and you do not want to be considered for any other preferences you have ranked higher, you can choose to simply accept it.

However, applicants do have the option of getting one of their higher ranked GP Training programme preferences, should they become available, by opting into upgrading. The upgrading option is available to all offers that have been held or accepted, but not where an offer has been declined. An applicant who has accepted or held an offer can opt in or out of upgrading at any time during the window which runs until the upgrade deadline published in the timeline for the current round (see the recruitment timeline). Please be aware that due to the ranking of your GP Training Programme preferences you may move into a different region if you are upgraded.

If you opt into upgrades and a higher preferenced offer becomes available, the upgrade will be automatic. You will be placed in the higher preferenced post and an automated message will be sent to you Oriel informing you of the upgrade; you will not be given 48 hours to decide whether you wish to accept or decline the upgrade. If an upgrade is made, the previously held or accepted post will be released and will be reoffered to another applicant.

Once you have been upgraded you will be sent an automated message through Oriel to inform you of this. Details of the upgrade made will be available in the relevant section on Oriel.

Please note: Upgrading of offers will not continue beyond the stated upgrade deadline, even if a preferred post becomes available at a later date. After the upgrade deadline, vacant posts will be offered to the next eligible applicant who has preferenced the post and who has yet to receive an offer, not to applicants who have already accepted a post. Swapping of posts is not permitted during the process.

Offer exchanges/enhanced preferences

Applicants can have a change in circumstances for any number of reasons in the time between programme preferences being made and offers being released.

For applicants who have accepted or held a post, there will be an option to select upgrade options which not only include those programmes that were originally ranked higher than the offered post, but also those that were ranked lower.

Please note: Any changes to preferences made between the offer algorithm being run and offers being released will not be considered until the next offers match is run.

These processes will continue up until the upgrading deadline in each recruitment round (see the GPNRO website).

More detailed guidance on this process is contained in the Oriel Applicant User Handbook. (You will need to create an account and log-in to Oriel to access the handbook.)

References

Referees should be contacted at the earliest opportunity to confirm that they are happy to support the application and provide a reference. You are required to give details of your last three clinical or educational supervisors from your current post, your previous post and the post before that.

Obtaining references is an applicant’s responsibility. The offered region will NOT chase your referees.

Should your referee fail to provide a reference before the deadline, the employing trust will contact your referee should they require additional information.

Reference requests

Reference requests are an automated process in Oriel. A request will be triggered and sent electronically to your nominated referees when you accept or, accept with upgrades an offer of GP training. To ensure that the requests are not blocked or filtered by your referees’ email providers you are strongly advised to inform your referees to add [email protected] to their email whitelist or, to check their junk/spam inbox for reference requests that have been diverted by your referees’ email provider.

Completing a reference

Referees are required to submit references electronically, using the online referee portal in Oriel. You will be advised, via your Oriel portal, the deadline for submitting references and when your referee has submitted a reference.

Changing your nominated referee

For any references that have not yet been submitted you are able to update the details of or, change your, nominated referees. However, if a referee has already submitted your reference, you will not be able to make any changes to their details.

If you change the email address against a referee, a new reference request will be sent to the newly provided email address, and the original request will be withdrawn.

Further preferencing within offered training programme

Once you have accepted an offer of training at a region and the upgrade deadline has passed, you will be asked, by the offered region, to indicate your preferred geography and/or rotational posts from those that are available within the Training Programme that you have accepted.

Information regarding these further preferences will be published on individual region websites.

The GPNRO does not have any involvement in this process. Any queries relating to this should be sent to the region where the training offer was received.

Allocation of trainees within local training programmes

Once offered a Training Programme within a region it is expected that further preferences will be based on individual ranking and achievement over the exercises involved in the selection process, i.e. higher performing applicants are offered a higher preference from the pool of local placements/rotations on offer.

There is, however, a risk associated with the lower level of allocations to programme level if done purely by choice. Therefore, each region has developed its own allocation policy to mitigate risk. You should visit the website of the relevant region for further information on this.

Offers of employment and pre-employment checks

The offer and allocation of a training programme referred to above is not an offer of employment. An employment contract detailing the terms and conditions of employment will be issued by the responsible employing organisation and is made subject to satisfactory pre-employment checks. Your offer of employment will include the name of your employer, the start date and length of the period of employment, the location, the hours, the minimum rate of remuneration and the notice period applicable.

Information regarding pay, hours, sick pay and annual leave entitlements, notice period, study leave, pension scheme etc. are set out in the national terms and conditions available from NHS Employers. A framework for a written contract of employment for GP specialty registrars is also available from the BMA. Individual region websites may also provide additional local information and links to individual employer websites.

The employing organisation carry out several pre-employment checks before an offer of employment can be confirmed. These will include verification of identity, registration and qualifications, right to work (immigration), employment history and employment reference checks (these are different from the clinical reference checks that the region needs), a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and an occupational health check. Some of these (verification of identify, registration and qualifications and right to work for example) may also be undertaken by the region during the recruitment process.

Clearing

Using the Single Transferable Score model in GP recruitment means there will be no option for clearing. Therefore, if you do not receive an offer in this round of recruitment it will be for one of two reasons:

1. Every one of your GP Training Programme preferences are accepted before your rank is reached (this could happen even if you are considered appointable in the process).
2. You were unsuccessful at a certain part of the recruitment process (you will be notified if this is the case).

Feedback

Applicants will be given feedback throughout the recruitment process and will not need to make a formal request to receive it.

Applicants that are rejected at the longlisting stage will be advised of the reason why their application was rejected. Applicants that are rejected following MSRA will be advised of their total scores and the scores needed achieve success. There is no further feedback that can be provided for the MSRA.

Complaints procedure

All national recruitment offices use a nationally agreed process for handling complaints about recruitment. If you feel your application has not been managed correctly and have evidence of a failure in the process, you should explore this route. Further information on the Complaints Policy and Procedure is available on the HEE website.