General FAQs

In 2012, England, Northern Ireland and Wales will be participating in RCP-coordinated CT1 recruitment.

This does not necessarily guarantee that vacant posts will be available in all three - please see the post numbers page of this website for more information.

Recruitment to CMT and ACCS-AM CT1 posts in Scotland in 2012 is being organised within Scotland, independently of the RCP CT1 recruitment process.

For more information on the Scottish recruitment process, please visit the Scottish medical training website: http://www.mmc.scot.nhs.uk/

Please note that any application you make to CT1 posts in the RCP-coordinated process (ie England/N Ireland/Wales) will be entirely independent of any application you wish to make to CT1 in Scotland, and vice versa. Thus you could apply to both if you so wish.

UoA stands for 'Unit of Application', and this is the term used to describe the areas to which CT1 candidates will apply - eg Mersey, Severn, London, etc.

While many UoAs will also be, in effect, deaneries, these areas will almost always be referred to in CT1 recruitment as deaneries/UoAs. This is because the area covered by some UoAs does not coincide with the area covered by a particular deanery.

For example, for CT1 recruitment, the East Midlands Deanery is divided into two sectors - North and South. Each of these acts as an independent UoA, even though both are within the same deanery.

• East Midlands
• East od England
• Northern (England)
• South West Peninsula
• Wales
• Yorkshire & Humber.

The following deaneries/UoAs will not be participating in round 2: KSS, London, Mersey, North Western, Northern Ireland, Oxford, Severn, Wessex, and West Midlands.

Further information on each of these deaneries/UoAs, including programme, website and contact details, can be found in the deaneries/UoAs section of this website.

Rotations will be organised between trainees and the deaneries/UoAs to which they apply. Deaneries/UoAs will request that candidates give preferences of different rotations later in the process.

Please contact any deaneries/UoAs to which you wish to apply to gain more information on this; contact details for all can be found on the deanery/UoA contacts page of this website.

It is not usually possible to apply for an inter-deanery transfer (IDT) within a two-year training programme. In exceptional circumstances, after you have been in post for at least twelve months, and if you can show that your personal circumstances have changed since your appointment, you can apply to transfer.

However, inter-deanery transfers are only possible if the proposed destination deanery has a vacant slot that can accommodate your remaining training requirements. Not all approved transfers will actually be able to transfer.

You cannot transfer to another deanery during your training just because you feel like a change! Please bear this in mind when identifying your preferred deanery/UoA choices when applying to CT1.

Guidelines for IDT requests will be available from your current deanery.

Please visit the post numbers page of this website for information about the availability and location of posts, both in CMT and ACCS-AM.

For more detailed information, we would advise contacting any deaneries/UoAs to which you are considering applying. Contact details for all can be found on the deanery/UoA contacts page of this website.

In most cases, no. Deferral of start date for CT1 is only possible on statutory grounds, such as maternity leave or long-term illness.

If you wish to go abroad before commencing a CT1 training programme, you are advised to either delay your application until you return, or to at least apply from abroad, in the same year* as that in which you wish to start training.

(* recruitment year, ie academic year. For example, candidates wishing to take up a CT1 post in August 2012 will actually submit applications in November/December 2011.)

Should you believe that your personal circumstances make it necessary to apply to CT1, but to then defer the start date of any post offer you receive, you will be given the opportunity to state your case for requesting deferral on the application form (within the 'personal information' section).

However, please note that deferral of start date is now much less commonly granted than it has been in recent years.

For more information, please see the Gold Guide - the particular section concerning deferral of post start date is 6.20, on page 36.

You are not required to - nor will you be able to - register with the CT1 application system before the time/date at which applications open. Please see the calendar page of this website for more information on timeline.

The first stage of completing the CT1 application form will be a short registration phase. You will be required to provide an email address by which you can be contacted (which will then also act as your username), and a password that you can use to log back in to the system as necessary at later dates.

Once you have entered and confirmed both of these, the registration stage will be complete - we expect this will take no longer than five minutes.

You can only complete and submit a single application in any round of the CT1 recruitment process, this is irrespective of whether you wish to apply for ACCS-AM or CMT posts (or both). This application will be used jointly for CMT and ACCS-AM.

In the event that you wish to be considered for both CMT and ACCS-AM posts, you still need complete only one application form. You will be invited to state preferences for posts within the two specialties around the time of interview (should your application progress to that point).

Please note that not all UoAs/deaneries have ACCS-AM posts. Especially if you are considering taking up an ACCS-AM training programme, please ensure you have checked the post numbers on the CT1 website before submitting your application. If you wish to apply for both ACCS-AM and CMT, you should only apply to deaneries that have both ACCS-AM and CMT posts.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to introduce an option allowing candidates to link applications in this manner. Obviously, you can both select the deanery/UoA preferences, but applications cannot be linked formally.

Once your application has been assessed, you can gain feedback by contacting the deanery/UoA at which it is being considered at that time (contact details can be found on the deanery/UoA contacts page of this website).

Please be aware that the feedback on application forms which can be provided to candidates is restricted, information on feedback will be published on the DH medical specialty training website.

Help and advice will be available from a variety of sources. Your first approach should be to the deanery/UoA to which you have applied.

The deanery/UoA website will have contact details for recruitment; alternatively, the deanery/UoA contacts page of this website contains contact details for each deanery/UoA. If the recruitment office within the deanery/UoA is unable to help with your query or complaint, this will be passed to senior medical recruitment staff within the deanery.

To be eligible for the Guaranteed Interview Scheme you must have a disability or long-term health condition that is expected to last for at least 12 months and which puts you at a significant disadvantage in either obtaining or keeping jobs. You do not have to be registered as a disabled person to apply under this scheme.

For more information, please see the Equality Act 2010.

No - the 2012 CT1 recruitment process will not include a knowledge test at any stage.