Applying in Oriel

Oriel is the UK-wide portal and recruitment system for postgraduate training vacancies. You use Oriel to submit your application.

All applications must be made electronically using the Oriel recruitment portal by the specified deadline.

Registration

You can register your details on Oriel before the application window opens.

To register, go to Oriel and click on Account Registration. You will not be able to access the online application form until the application window opens.

You will be asked to provide:

• your name – this must be entered exactly as it appears on the GMC register
• a valid email address – ensure you register with a secure and individual email address which you check regularly
• password – at least 8 characters in length and contains at least one upper case letter and one numeric value

Once the system has validated these details you will be taken to the selection page where you can choose the specialty you are applying for and the relevant recruitment round and year. You will not see details of specific posts until preferencing has opened.

Submitting an application

You are only able to submit one application. This is for Core Psychiatry. There is not a separate application process for the other Core Training pathways, including ST1 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and ST1 Psychiatry of Learning Disability.

The application form will only ask for factual information about you and your employment history. Once you've submitted your application, you are unable to make any changes, apart from to update your own contact and referee details so please ensure that you do not submit unless it is complete. 

All sections of the application form must be completed fully according to written guidelines. 

Late or incomplete applications will not be considered. The dates and deadlines relating to recruitment activity are available on the recruitment timeline page.

Communications about your application

Communication about your application will be through direct messaging in Oriel. Oriel will also send an email, but we cannot guarantee delivery, so you should not rely this method of communication. 

Special circumstances

A standardised national process is available for all specialty recruitment to ensure that applicants with special circumstances and a requirement to train in a specific region are treated in a fair and consistent way.

If you fall into one of the following eligibility crtiteria you can apply to have your circumstances taken into consideration allowing you to be pre-allocated into a post.

• Criterion 1 – you are the primary carer for someone who is disabled, as defined by the Equality Act 2010
• Criterion 2 – you have a medical condition or disability for which ongoing follow up for the condition in the specified location is an absolute requirement.

If you wish to be considered for special circumstances you should complete the special circumstances application form and forward this, together with supporting evidence, as a single scanned document to [email protected].

Fitness to practise

If you make a Fitness to Practise declaration on your application form, you must complete a form and send it to [email protected]. This must be provided no later than the closing date for applications, which you can find on the recruitment timeline page.

This will not affect the progession of your application.

Equality and diversity

We are committed to ensuring our selection procedures are fair and that, in line with the Equality Act 2010, no-one is disadvantaged on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation.

All applicants are assessed against the nationally agreed CT1 and ST1 Psychiatry person specifications.

Less than full-time training

If you have a valid reason why you are unable to work full-time you can select the less than full time (LTFT) training option at the time of applying. This information will not be considered during the offers process. If you would like more information, contact the MDRS team [email protected]. 

Disabled applicants

If you have a disability that will require special arrangements to be made for the MSRA, please state this within your application when asked to do so. 

As there will be no interviews, consideration under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’, formerly known as the ‘Guaranteed Interview Scheme’, will not apply. All applicants meeting entry eligibility criteria will be invited to the MSRA.

Reapplication to Specialty Training

Specialty Training posts and programmes are not normally available to any doctor who has previously left or been released or removed from that training post/programme.

However, there are some exceptions.

Support for reapplication to Specialty Training

If you have previously left, been released or removed from a UK Core Psychiatry Training programme, your application can only be considered if it is accompanied by one of the following:

• a letter of support from the postgraduate dean, or designated deputy of the HEE area or region in which you worked
• the Exclusion Policy Support form available on the Oriel Resource Bank

You will need to attach this information to your Oriel application before you submit. You are advised to start the process early if you require this support. 

Support for reapplication of Specialty Training in a different region

If you currently work in a Core Psychiatry or ST1 Child and Adolescent training programme, and wish to apply to continue your training in another region without a break in service, you will need the support of your current Head of School or Programme Director in order to reapply.

You must ask your Head of School or Programme Director in your current HEE area or region to complete a Support for Reapplication of Specialty Training in a Different Region form.

Applications will not be considered without a fully completed and signed form, which must be submitted at the time of application.

Preferences

If you are found eligible through the longlisting process, you will be invited to rank all available CT1 and ST1 posts in England, Scotland and Wales in order of preference.

Offers will be made according to Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA) performance rank. Personal preferences and available posts will be taken into account.

You are advised to only rank posts that you are realistically willing to accept.

Offers

The decision whether to make you an offer of a training programme will be based on your individual MSRA performance ranking and score. It will take your personal preferences into consideration.

If your MSRA score meets or exceeds the appointability requirements, you will be deemed "appointable". This does not guarantee you a post. You will be ranked according to your MSRA performance score and offers will depend on your ranking coupled with your preferencing of available posts in each local area/region. The higher your MSRA score, the more likely you are to be offered a training post.

Any offer and allocation of a training programme you receive is not an offer of employment. An employment contract detailing the terms and conditions of employment will be issued by the employing organisation where you will be based 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 standard pay, hours, sick pay and annual leave entitlements, notice period and study leave are set out in the national terms and conditions available from the NHS Employers website.

If you are deemed eligible for appointment but your MSRA score places you below the number of vacancies available, you could still receive an offer if initial offers are rejected by higher scoring applicants.

If you are not deemed "appointable" you will receive a message confirming this.

Receiving offers

Offers will be released by Health Education England (North West) on behalf of all areas and regions via Oriel. 

Responding to an offer

You will be given 48 hours (exclusive of weekends and bank holidays) to respond to an offer. You will have three options on how to respond.

• Accept (or accept with upgrades)
• Hold (or hold with upgrades)
• Reject

Accepting an offer is a two-stage process. You will need to ensure that you have completed both stages and that your offer screen in Oriel correctly reflects that an offer has been accepted upon completion of the process. Failure to do so could result in the offer expiring and being offered to another candidate.

If you fail to respond to an offer within the 48 hour window, you will be deemed to have declined the offer.

Once you have accepted a post, you will not receive any further offers from any other specialty.

Offers that are declined or expire will be recycled and offered in rank order to other applicants.

Holding offers

If you choose to hold an offer, you can do this until the deadline specified on the recruitment timelines page. Before this deadline, you are 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 your post.

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

Upgrades

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 you via Oriel informing you of the upgrade. You will not be given 48 hours to decide whether you wish to accept to decline the upgrade. If an upgrade is made, the previously held or accepted post will be released and re-offered 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.

Upgrading of offers will not continue beyond the stated upgrade deadline. 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.

Offers exchanges and enhanced preferences

All appointable candidates will have the option to amend their preferences should they wish to.

If you do not receive an offer in the initial matching process this may help you achieve an offer in the subsequent matching processes.

When an Offer is accepted with upgrades, or, held with upgrades, you will also have the opportunity to amend your preferences. This will allow you to remove preferences that you originally ranked above your current offer and alter the order of your preferenced programmes.

Deffering your start date

You can make an application for deferred entry as per guidance in the Gold Guide. Deferral can only be considered on statutory grounds such as maternity leave or ill health. No other reason will be considered.

Offers of employment and pre-employment checks

Once you have accepted an offer of training and the upgrade deadline has passed, your information will be released to your new recruiting region.

The Psychiatry Recruitment team does not have any involvement after this stage and any queries should be sent to the region where the training offer was received. 

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. 

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
• employment reference checks (these are different from the clinical reference checks that the region needs)
• a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check
• an occupational health check

Some of these (verification of identity, registration, qualifications, and right to work, for example) may also be undertaken by the region during the recruitment process.

References

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

All offers will be made on the condition of the offered region receiving three satisfactory references. Obtaining references is your responsibility. The offered region will not chase your referees.

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 training. To ensure that 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.

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, when your referee has submitted a reference. The system will then send regular reminders until the reference has been received. In rare cases there may be a need for your reference to be provided on paper. We will instruct you if this is necessary. 

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 the 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.

• Recruitment timelines

  The key Core Training recruitment dates