Applying

How to apply for ST3 General Surgery posts.

General Surgery recruitment to programmes in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is managed via a nationally coordinated process on behalf of the General Surgery Specialty Advisory Committees (SAC).

Further programme and rotation information will be available at the point of preferencing at a later date in the process. Information will be sent to your Oriel account and copied to your registered email inbox with instructions on how to complete preferencing. In addition, indicative post numbers for each NHS England local officewill be made available within the advert.   

Applications will only be accepted through Oriel between 10am on Thursday 16 November 2023 and at 4pm on Thursday 7 December 2023. Please be aware applications received after this time will not be accepted and there will be no exceptions to this. You can view the recruitment timeline for more information.

To register on Oriel, you must ensure you have a valid email address. Communication between the recruitment office and yourself will be primarily via Oriel. You should check your Oriel and personal email account at least once every 24 hours.

Eligibility and longlisting

You must meet the entry criteria in order to be considered for specialty training. It is important to note that your application is likely to be rejected prior to the interview stage should you fail a criterion assessed at longlisting. Please refer to the person specification for full details of entry criteria. 

Your application will be longlisted against the entry criteria as outlined on the person specification. Please be aware that you may still be withdrawn from the application process at any stage if found to be ineligible to apply even if you have been made an offer.

Important information on Certificate of Readiness to Enter Higher Surgical Training (CREHST)

The Certificate of Readiness to Enter Higher Surgical Training (CREHST) is the only acceptable evidence of achievement of all requisite core surgical competences for your application to General Surgery ST3 for applicants who have not completed a recognised UK Core Surgical Training Programme or will have completed a UK Core Surgical Training Programme by the post start date. All competences must be signed off in order for a CREHST to be accepted. If necessary, competences can be signed off by multiple supervisors where a single supervisor feels unable to sign off the totality of competences. The CREHST must be submitted by all applicants who are not on or have not completed a UK Core Surgical Training programme.  

The CREHST can be downloaded from the Oriel resource bank.

Reasonable adjustments and Guaranteed interview scheme

We will ensure, where possible, that reasonable adjustments are made at interview to meet the needs of applicants with disabilities. You must ensure that you include this as part of your Oriel application form. All documentation should be uploaded as part of their application form. Failure to provide the required information and documentation could result in adjustments and/or Disability Confident Scheme status not being accommodated. See more information regarding reasonable adjustments and the guaranteed interview scheme.

Special circumstances and Fitness to Practise

Please refer to the guidance on special circumstances and Fitness to Practise before starting your application.

Any candidate who answers yes to one or more of the questions in the Fitness to Practise section of the application form, must complete the Fitness to Practise (FTP) declaration form providing further details regarding their affirmative/positive answer. 

Please refer to the guidance and relevant forms which can be found within the applicant support portal.

Deferred start dates and Less Than Full Time

Further information on how to request a deferred start date or training less than full time (LTFT) can be found on the Medical Specialty Recruitment pages.

October rotations

Candidates currently in core surgical training posts who are expected to complete core surgical training in October 2024 rather than August 2024 are eligible to apply for the 2024 round of General Surgery ST3 recruitment.

Portfolio shortlisting process

You will be provided with further instructions about how to upload evidence to the evidence portal in due course. You should ensure that you present the evidence in the requested format. Failure to do so will result in your evidence being rejected.

Please refer to Appendix 2 for further information regarding this process.

Please note that this part of the process is mandatory. Failure to submit all evidence by the stated deadline will result in your application form being withdrawn by the recruitment team. The upload window is 12 December 2023 to 9 January 2024.

Recruitment administrators will not be able to upload evidence on your behalf and once the deadline for submission has passed, your access will be withdrawn.

On completion of the portfolio scoring process, you will be sent your portfolio score. You will have 72 hours in which to lodge an appeal. 

Appeals received after the 72-hour deadline will not be considered. The outcome of the appeal is final and there is no further recourse if you are dissatisfied. Disagreements over self-assessment scores fall out of scope of the MDRS Complaints Policy.