Applying

Before you apply for Specialty Training you should check that you're eligible.

How to apply

Vascular Surgery recruitment to programmes in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is managed via a nationally coordinated process hosted by the recruitment office on behalf of the Vascular 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 NHSE local office/deanery will be made available on the Medical Specialty Recruitment pages.

Applications will only be accepted through Oriel between 10am on Thursday 16 November 2023 and 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.

To register on Oriel, you must ensure you have a valid email address. Communication between the recruitment office and applicants will be primarily via Oriel.

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 specifications 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 Please be aware that you may still be withdrawn from the application process at any stage if found to be ineligible to apply even if you have been made an offer.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 CREHST is the only acceptable evidence of achievement of all requisite core surgical competences for all applicants to Vascular Surgery ST3 who will not have completed a recognised 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. 

Special circumstances and Fitness to Practise

Please refer to the Medical Specialty Recruitment pages for guidance on special circumstances.

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 your affirmative/positive answer. 

Please refer to the guidance and relevant forms which can be found within our 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 Vascular Surgery ST3 recruitment.

Verification shortlisting process

The self-assessment will be completed online as part of the Oriel application. 

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 could result in your evidence being rejected. 

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 from Thursday 18 January to Thursday 1 February 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. 

Submitted evidence will be verified against the self-assessment criteria for all applicants. Where the evidence submitted does not match the score awarded, the score will be adjusted accordingly. 

On completion of the verification process, you will be sent your verified score. Where you disagree with the score awarded, you can lodge an appeal. The verified scores will be used to shortlist candidates for interview.

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.