General Surgery ST3

Selection to ST3 in General Surgery programmes in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland is taking place through a single national process. This is jointly managed by the London and Kent, Surrey, and Sussex (LaKSS) on behalf of all NHS England Regions/Deaneries and by the Specialty Advisory Committees (SAC) in General Surgery (on behalf of the Joint Committee for Surgical Training). The person specification for General Surgery ST3 remains unchanged. The selection methodology this year has been adapted and the process for 2024 is explained further within the Applicant Guidance Handbook.

General Surgery trainees will be trained, following the most up-to-date curriculum, to become competent in emergency general surgery and, in addition, will gain experience in one or more of the sub-specialities of general surgery (colorectal, upper GI, HPB, transplant, breast or endocrine surgery). Trainees will be exposed to the full range of skills required for elective and emergency practice over the indicative 6-year length of the training programmes.

Please check the below link for the person specifications:

https://medical.hee.nhs.uk/medical-training-recruitment/medical-specialty-training/person-specifications/person-specifications-2025

Applications should be submitted via the General Surgery vacancy on Oriel.

All applicants applying to specialty training are required to have the essential competences or equivalent.

For more information on competences please refer to the resource bank on Oriel and the Medical Specialty Training website. 

Please upload all required evidence of competences to your application form when completing it online.

For those experiencing difficulties when uploading evidence, please ensure you contact the team via the PGMDE support portal: https://lasepgmdesupport.hee.nhs.uk/support/home 

Please note that there is a strict application policy that applications cannot be accepted after the deadline.

Reasonable adjustments and Disability Confident Scheme 

For more information regarding reasonable adjustments and disability confident scheme please refer to Medical Speciality Website.

Eligibility Criteria for recruitment to Specialty Training – Immigration Requirements

All medical practitioners are on the shortage occupation list, this means with the exception of all applicants to Public Health, all specialty recruitment applicants will be exempt from the resident labour market test (RLMT). 

Key dates & information

A full timeline can be found in the General Surgery Applicant Handbook attached to this vacancy.

Also, information is available on the Speciality Training webpage. 

Application window: Thursday 14th November 2024 – Thursday 5th December 2024     

Evidence upload window: Monday 16th December 2024 – Thursday 16th January 2025

Interview dates: Monday 17th – Wednesday 19th March 2025            

Interview venue: Remote online portal

Posts commence: August/October 2025 (TBC by employing trust) 

The anticipated rotation frequency for posts in this programme is 6 – 12 months but may vary in different programmes and or regions.

Completion of each specialities Higher Surgical Training (HST) scheme will lead to the recommendation of CCT/CESR (CP), subject to satisfactory progression through the annual ARCP process.

The expected duration of each of the programme is 6 years, however, this may depend on the circumstances of the individual.

Please note that London and Kent, Surrey & Sussex recruitment has a strict application policy and will not accept applications submitted after the deadline.

The Postgraduate Dean confirms that each placement and/or programme has the required educational and Dean’s approval. The Training Programme is equally open to those who may, either from the outset or subsequently, wish to train flexibly or job share.  Approval must be sought from the recruitment team before the interview, and this is subject to availability of suitable training placements.

Portfolio Shortlisting and Selection process

All applicants will be invited to upload Templates summarising their evidence for questions on the application form. Each template will need to be countersigned by the applicant’s Educational Supervisor (or equivalent) with their name and GMC number (or equivalent). Further evidence for each question will be clearly described and will need to be uploaded with the templates during the evidence upload window.

Shortlisting: All applicants will have their portfolio scored via the 2025 General Surgery ST3 Portfolio Shortlisting Evidence Portal by a panel to produce a shortlist score. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview.  If it is subsequently discovered that any submitted evidence is false or misleading, evidence will be collected, and you may be referred to a Probity Panel.

Document checking: Please check the supplementary handbook for further details of documents required for the interview.

Interview structure: This will be an online 40-minute interview via MS Teams. There will be three stations consisting of a clinical scenario, a management scenario and a portfolio station. Communication skills will be assessed throughout the interview. Reading time will be allocated for both the clinical and management scenarios.

Preferencing Posts: Preferencing will be made available via Oriel and more information will follow at a later stage.

Contacts / Enquiries

During the recruitment episode please visit the Oriel recruitment system FAQ section. For any queries that cannot be answered by the methods above please contact: Applicant Enquiries.

If you have made a positive declaration in the FTP section, you must e-mail via https://lasepgmdesupport.hee.nhs.uk/support/home by the close of the application window. Please refer to the supplementary FTP guide for the information you must include. Failure to e-mail the outlined information by the close of application may result in your application being withdrawn.

Programmes

Programmes will be confirmed directly with the candidate by the appropriate HEE local office should applicants be successful at interview.

Post numbers – Post information available to download from the document section.

Please note that there is currently an agreement between the three NHS England regions and their neighbouring regions of NHS England/East of England and NHS England/Kent Surrey and Sussex, that allows applicants to be placed in a neighbouring region to fulfil the requirements of their training programme. The number of trainees this involves is small but significant enough that applicants should be aware of this when selecting programmes.

There is also currently an agreement between NHS England Kent Surrey and Sussex and the three NHS England London regions, which may mean that applicants are placed into a London post to fulfil the requirements of their training programme. The number of trainees that this involves is small but significant enough that applicants should be aware of this when selecting programmes. Successful applicants will remain KSS managed trainees during their time spent out of region.