Clearing

Below are listed a series of criteria, all of which you must meet to be eligible to be invited to enter clearing.

• You must be eligible for ST3 overall.
  (ie you must meet all of the essential eligibility requirements on the relevant ST3 person specification)
• You need to have received a full assessment within the relevant specialty.
  (ie you need to have attended interview during the main round, not just submitted an application)
• The 'appointability status' awarded to your application must be 'nationally appointable'.
  ('Appointability status' is discussed further down this page)
• You can only enter clearing if you have not accepted a substantive NTN ST3 post in the main recruitment round.
  (although if you have, it is unlikely you would want to participate in clearing!)

Provided that you meet all of the criteria above, then the factors below will not prevent you from being eligible to enter clearing.

• Declined posts. If you received a post offer during the main recruitment round, but did not accept it (ie declined it), you can still be considered for clearing.
• Withdrew applications. Likewise, if you withdrew any applications during the main recruitment round, you can still be considered for clearing.
• Accepted LAT offer. Even if you have accepted a LAT post in the main round, you will still be able to enter clearing to seek substantive, NTN posts.
  You can retain your LAT post while clearing is going on - if you are offered a substantive post, you can then release your LAT post to take up the NTN; whereas if you are not offered a substantive post, you can go on to take up the LAT post you accepted in the main round.
  However - if you have already accepted a LAT post in the main round, you can only be considered for substantive, NTN vacancies in clearing; you cannot be considered for alternative LATs in clearing.

During the interview, in addition to awarding scores to candidates on the six areas of assessment, interviewers also consider the appointability status of all candidates they see.

There are three potential categories of appointability status that can be awarded.

• Nationally appointable - this means that a candidate can be considered eligible for, and suitable to take up, an ST3 post in the specialty at any deanery/UoA in the country.
  All deaneries/UoAs accept that a 'nationally appointable' candidate is suitable for a post, regardless of which deanery/UoA carried out this assessment - and thus candidates assessed as such can be eligible for clearing.
• Locally appointable - any candidate assessed as locally appointable can be offered a post by the deanery/UoA which has interviewed them, but they are not eligble for clearing.
  Essentially, this status means that interviewers had some concerns over a candidate, were satisfied that their deanery/UoA could appoint them and train them as need be, but could not guarantee that a different deanery/UoA would be satisfied sufficiently with their candidature to appoint them to a post without further assessment.
• Not appointable - where a candidate is assessed as not appointable, this applies both on a local and national scale; ie interviewers could not be confident enough in the candidate's skills/experience to offer them a post at their deanery, nor to recommend their candidature to another deanery.
  Candidates in this category will not receive an offer at any stage of the recruitment round, and are thus not eligibile for clearing.

Once all interviews in the main recruitment round are completed and scores are verified and checked, all candidates will receive a feedback email detailing their performance at interview and their appointability status.

When the RCP-SRO contacts you, you will be provided with details of all the vacant posts within 'your' specialty across England & Wales; asked to highlight which of them you would wish to be considered for; and to then put these into preference order (ie nominate your first-choice, second-choice, etc.).

You do not need to preference/rank all vacancies if you do not wish to - you can select as many or as few as you like.

'Non-considerable' posts

As noted above, if you have accepted a LAT offer during the main recruitment round, you cannot be considered for any LAT posts during clearing - so if you are in this position, you should select only substantive, NTN posts.

You do not need to withdraw from the LAT post if you enter clearing; if you do receive, and accept, an offer of an NTN post, you can then withdraw from the LAT offer; but if you do not receive an NTN offer, you can then go on to take up the LAT post.

It is not possible to transfer scores between different specialties. So if you have applied to a specialty, been assessed as eligible and appointable, you can enter clearing - but only for that specialty.

Once all candidates have provided this preferencing, a national ranking of those candidates who wish to participate in clearing will be established. This ranking will be based upon the candidates' scores from the main recruitment round - ie their overall, final score.

When this ranking is in place, the application of the highest-scoring candidate will then be sent to the deanery/UoA they have nominated as their first-choice preference; provided the deanery is satisfied, they will then make this candidate an offer of a post. The second-highest candidate will then have their application sent to their first-choice preference; and so on.

In the event that the clearing process reaches a candidate whose first-choice preference has been offered to, and accepted by, an alternative candidate, their application will be sent for consideration at their second-choice preference. If the second-choice has gone, it will be sent to the third-choice; and so on.

Upon receiving a clearing offer, please be aware that you must respond to the offer within 24 hours of the offer being made; so once clearing has begun, please do check your email regularly.

There are only two options when responding to clearing offers - accept or decline. There is no option to hold an offer in clearing.

Should you be made an offer in clearing, you are under no obligation to accept it; however, should you opt to decline the clearing offer, you will not be made any further offers during clearing.

This will continue as far as is possible, until all posts have been filled, or the list of appointable candidates has been exhausted.