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Foundation programme competition -- current status?

This is a topic I'm interested in at the moment, and I've heard a lot of people talk about the continuing difficulty in gaining a place in one of their preferred specialities.

How bad is the situation? Does it only really affect people ranked lower in their cohort, or is it across the board? Is there any update from the government on increasing placements (I'm guessing not)?

Reply 1

Helenia

IIRC, there was oversubscription by about 300 this year, which is probably roughly 5% of total jobs available. This means that there will be ~300 newly qualified junior doctors without a job at all come August. Some of them will get jobs due to others dropping out or failing finals, but we're not sure if they all will. And of course whatever job they get will be randomly allocated and have no relation to any of their preferences.

Those who have been allocated a job still may not be able to get one in a location where they want to work, or to get rotations in specialties they're keen on. Obviously those who scored higher will have a better chance of this, but still not guaranteed. The thing that I think upsets a lot of people is just how random the scoring appears to be - you get people who were in the top decile of their medical school scoring very badly in the SJT despite apparently thinking it was ok. Still not sure whether the SJT is a better option than the previous one, which basically allocated you a job based on your ability to bull**** through a few white space questions.

I am not aware that the government has any plans to increase funding for more foundation trainees.