Making an Application 

Applications will be made using the National Recruitment Office for General Practice Training (NRO). The short listing-stage of the GP application is a national competition for places at selection centres, whilst the selection centre stage is a competition for training places at deanery level.

Eligible applicants will be asked to attend an initial invigilated national assessment designed to measure the competencies outlined on the person specification. This forms the short-listing process, and results in national ranking of all applicants for GP training.

A Unit of Application (UoA) for recruitment into specialty training programmes is a unit/recruitment team where recruitment and selection into specialty training will be administered. In most cases, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will each be a single UoA. In England, UoAs will usually be deaneries. The UoA will provide information about the clinical training programmes, academic training programmes and fixed-term specialty training appointments (FTSTAs) to which it will be recruiting.

You can only apply for a specialty at a particular level in a UoA if training opportunities exist for that combination. Your application will be assessed by each UoA you apply to but the UoAs will not be able to see which other UoAs you have applied to.

The GP process has been developed to avoid multiple applications to different deaneries and to appoint the strongest candidates across the country. All applicants who meet the GP training entry criteria will be invited to attend a national short-listing assessment which consists of a machine-markable test. The system will sort the highest scoring candidates in rank order. Highest scoring applicants will then be invited to attend a selection centre at the highest preferred location.

Once applicants have been allocated to a deanery, the competition for a training place will be at deanery level against the other applicants allocated to that deanery. The selection centre will comprise three workplace-based assessments, which will include a patient simulation exercise. The deanery will rank all applicants following the selection centre and the highest ranked applicants will be offered training places in the deanery.

Who to contact (organisations)

Information about making an application, including a timeline for the next round of Specialty Recruitment is available on the NRO website http://www.gprecruitment.org.uk/. Dates for the initial national assessment and for deanery selection centres are published.

Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board - PMETB