This page gives an overview of what is required in terms of documentation for the achievements claimed in the self-assessment section of your application form.

You will not be required to upload any documents to support your self-assessment with your application form. Instead you will be contacted at some point after applications close when you can start uploading them. Oriel will not be used for evidence documents and this will be done via a separate system, with login details given when you are contacted.

The anticipated dates when evidence will be required to be uploaded are published in the 'Interview dates & posts' section of each specialty's page. Please note that you will need to load documents separately for every specialty to which you have applied, and specialties may have different dates for uploading.

All candidates are advised that they must have documentary evidence available from the time of application for all achievements for which they score themselves. It is advised to ensure you have access to all your documents when you apply to avoid complications later in the process.

Evidence requirements and tips

Interviewers will need to verify your evidence in a short time so please keep the below in mind when organising the evidence you will upload, as poorly organised/presented documents may mean achievements cannot be verified.  

  • If you supply no evidence, or no evidence for three or more of your scored achievements, you will not be shortlisted.
  • There are points available as part of the application score for well-organised evidence, this will be on the basis of following the instructions in this document; see the section below for more information.
  • Only evidence supporting each of the claimed achievements should be uploaded. There is no requirement to upload any additional documents or achievements if they are not directly related to the scoring domain where points are being claimed.
  • Assessors will be advised that where evidence of an achievement is unclear or difficult to verify, they should award a score commensurate with what they can be confident in verifying. 
  • Only sufficient evidence should be provided to justify the scores awarded; the application scoring area of the website gives examples of documents that could be used for each domain. Only include enough evidence to demonstrate achievements which justify your selection. For example:
    • If you have completed a national presentation, you should not include evidence for other presentations.
    • If you have written a book, you do not need to upload the whole book, just sufficient pages so interviewers can verify your achievement.
  • For most specialties, evidence of training courses or areas noted in your commitment to specialty section should not be included unless they specifically relate to a scored option; see the section below about exceptions to this.
  • Applicants must ensure patient-identifiable data is redacted as this may result in their employing trust being notified.
  • Any documentation not in English must be translated for credit to be received.
  • File types – only files in PDF, JPEG or PNG format are accepted by the upload system.
  • Flie size - the maximum file size is 28MB.
  • When evidence is loaded, it needs to be tagged to the domain(s) to which it pertains. For example, if you have a presentation for which you have been awarded a prize, you can upload the presentation evidence once and tag it under both domains.

Additional guidance will be issued with any request for evidence documentation to be uploaded.

Organisation and thoroughness mark

There will be two marks available for evidence which is organised satisfactorily. If presentation is sufficiently poor that it makes to difficult to verify self-assessment, this could lead to an application not being shortlisted, regardless of other scoring. It is anticipated that it will be rare for a not shortlisted outcome to be made on the basis of poor organisation and any decisions will be reviewed by the clinical lead. Factors which could contribute to a not shortlisted outcome include:

  • over-supplying evidence-well beyond what is required to justify the score, or the areas not requested as part of self-assessment
  • poor display of evidence, e.g. via incorrect ‘tagging’ of files, poor naming conventions, difficult to read documents
  • serious concerns about probity due to persistent or blatant over-scoring on their application
  • serious breaches of patient-identifiable data in your evidence. Applicants must ensure patient-identifiable data is redacted; issues may also result in your employing trust being notified.

Evidence of commitment to specialty

If the specialty to which you have applied is assessing commitment to specialty alongside self-assessment verification, some of these specialties will request documentary evidence to be uploaded to demonstrate commitment. It will be made clear in the 'Planning your application' section of each specialty's page, whether they are assessing commitment to specialty at this stage and, if so, whether evidence is required to be uploaded.

Although it is not possible to be exhaustive about the types of evidence to provide, examples include: attendance at taster sessions, participation in projects relating to the specialty, attendance at specialty events/teaching, participation in specialty groups/societies. You can also 'tag' evidence loaded for self-assessmemt domains to commitment to specialty if they relate to the specialty of application; e.g. a publication or presentation.

As with other evidence categories, be mindful of how much evidence you are uploading and avoid uploading large numbers of documents. Your evidence need only be sufficient to demonstrate to assessors whether you meet the criteria for a 'satisfactory' or 'good' level of commitment.


Patient-identifiable data

Information governance regulations state that you must not allow any patient-identifiable data (PID) to be moved away from the designated (usually clinical) area.

As such, you must ensure none of the documentation you use at interview (eg details of case reports, audit, etc.) contains information which could be used to identify patients, as this would be a breach of patient confidentiality; this includes hospital or NHS ID numbers.

All such patient-identifiable data must be redacted.

If patient-identifiable data is found, it is likely that your employer, supervisor and region (as relevant) will be notified, in order to take further action.