Self-assessment and verification

How self-assessment works and how you will sumbit evidence.

Competence assessment

You will be required to indicate evidence of completion, or prospective completion, of all requisite core surgical competences by post start date as per the person specification. Candidates fall in to the following 3 groups.

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

The Alternative 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 Plastic 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 certificate is available for download from the CRESHT page.

You must answer the following questions on the application form.

Other entry criteria:

Complete employment history

You must include details of all employments undertaken since the award of your primary medical qualification inclusive of foundation posts, and employment undertaken overseas. If employment was undertaken as part of a rotation, then each post on the rotation should be detailed separately. When detailing information relating to Core Surgical Training, you should indicate the specific surgical specialty undertaken on each rotation. Failure to provide a complete employment history, inclusive of satisfactory explanations for any gaps in employment, will lead to your application being withdrawn from the process.

You must ensure that your employment history is clearly presented and that experience in surgery is clearly indicated. Assumptions about experience will not be made where information is inadequately presented. Failure to indicate this clearly will lead to your application being withdrawn from the process.

The certificate is available for download from Oriel Resource Bank.

October rotations

Candidates currently in core surgical training posts who are expected to complete core surgical training in October 2026 rather than August 2026 are eligible to apply for the 2026 round of Plastic Surgery ST3 recruitment.

Shortlisting

You will be invited to upload evidence for their claimed score to the evidence upload portal between Thursday 18 December 2025 to Monday 5 January 2026.

Therefore, it crucial that you complete your self-assessment honestly and accurately at the time of application. It is not possible to change your self-assessment score after you have submitted your application under any circumstances. 

Any instances where you are found to have deliberately over-scored your self-assessment may be treated as probity concerns. This may lead to being removed from the recruitment process or a referral to the General Medical Council (GMC).

Submitting supporting evidence

You will be provided with further instructions about how to upload evidence to the portal in due course. You should ensure that you present the evidence in the requested format. Failure to do so could result in your evidence being rejected and/or the self-assessment score being revised downwards.

Failure to submit all evidence by the stated deadline will result in your application form being withdrawn by the recruitment team.  Please ensure all your evidence is uploaded in advance of the deadline.

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.

Please be aware, particularly if you have applied before, there have been subtle changes to the portfolio to reduce subjectivity and ease a distanced validation. Please read the section headings carefully when completing self-assessment and evidence submission.

Evidence verification

Submitted evidence will be reviewed by a team of Plastic Surgery consultants and verified against the self-assessment scoring criteria. Where the evidence submitted does not match the self-assessment score awarded, the verified score will be adjusted accordingly. 

On completion of the verification process, you will be sent your verified score together with the verification panel’s feedback explaining any changes to score. Where you disagree with the verified score awarded, you can lodge an appeal.

If your self-assessment score differs significantly from the assessor score, then you should expect to be contacted by an assessor as part of a probity process. Please ensure that your contact details on Oriel are correct and kept up to date as these are the details that will be used to contact you.

Appeals against verified scores must be lodged within 72 hours of the scores being sent to you. No additional evidence can be submitted but you can request a review of the evidence already submitted via the portal. Your appeal request should clearly explain why you feel that the score should be adjusted, based on the evidence that was initially submitted and verified. Appeals received after the 72-hour deadline will not be considered.

Appeals will be reviewed by the National Selection Lead and the Plastic Surgery Specialty Advisory Committee (SAC) Chair who will decide whether verified scores should be changed or not and you will be informed of the outcome. 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.

Once the evidence verification and appeals processes have been completed then the applicants with the highest verified scores will be invited to book an interview slot via Oriel.

Scoring information

Please see the below shortlisting scoring information. The domains are strictly mapped onto the questions from the ‘Self-Assessment’ section of the application form. Weighting of the different sections has been removed for the 2026 application round.