National Recruitment in Dentistry – the Orthodontic Experience

The vast majority of recruitment to postgraduate medical training (more than 95%) is now carried out using a national recruitment process. In November 2011 the first national recruitment process for dentistry was undertaken for first year dental foundation training (DF1) for posts available in August 2012. For that process there were 1190 (on-line) applications and of these, 1145 eligible candidates (including 97 from European dental schools) were invited to one of the five selection centres held across England. A 100 per cent fill rate was achieved with all 927 available DF1 places allocated to deanery DF1 schemes within one week of offers being made. Of these, 45% secured their first choice, 65% were offered a place on one of their top three schemes and 84% were offered a placement in one of their top 10 preferenced schemes. There were more applicants than available posts to enter the dental workplace, therefore some candidates were left without appointments, but as a recruitment process it was seen by many to have been a great success. The Department of Health is keen to move forward with a national recruitment process for dentistry. As orthodontics is the largest dental specialty and the vast majority of posts have a unified commencing date (at the end of September/beginning of October), the Committee of Postgraduate Dental Deans (COPDEND) agreed to run a national recruitment pilot for dentistry involving the specialty of orthodontics for its NHS specialty preCCST training intake in the autumn of 2012. For this year the pilot will only involve the English deaneries as Northern Ireland do not have any specialty registrar (StR) training in 2012 and also at this stage, Scotland and Wales would prefer to act as observers to the pilot process. Not all English deaneries have training posts available in 2012 but many of them still wish to be involved in the recruitment process. A COPDEND working party was set up consisting of members from COPDEND, the Orthodontic Specialty, the Specialist Advisory Committee, the Joint Committee for Postgraduate Training in Dentistry, Consultant Orthodontist Group and the University Teachers Group of the British Orthodontic Society. The working party worked very closely with the London Deanery who ran the process and also ran the similar process for DF1 national recruitment. A national person specification was agreed and used as a basis for structuring a sixstation interview which was held in London on the 10 & 11 of May 2012. A total of 116 applications were received for a provisional number of 28 posts across eight English deaneries. One of the significant advantages of a national recruitment process is that all candidates who satisfy the essential criteria can be invited to interview, whereas in the past a short listing process may have removed some very able candidates from the interview stage; 94 applicants satisfied the essential criteria and were invited to interview. A total of 83 individuals attended the interviews (4–5 applicants withdrew from the process for personal reasons and chose not to attend the interview). Forty one interviewers, who had all undergone specific interview training, were used over the two days and the input from the two Lay Chairs from the London Deanery was invaluable. With three parallel panels simultaneously interviewing up to twenty candidates in three cohorts at any one time, the timing had to be planned with military precision. The interview consisted of six independent stations developed by the working group with a total interview time of 120 minutes. The stations covered the following areas in the person specification: communication (verbal and written), governance, management, portfolio/application form and research. Thankfully, the immense amount of planning, and support from the London Deanery, resulted in a successful interview process and a ranking list of applicants was achieved with a top 28, an additional 20 reserves and a cut off at the 66% mark level. All applicants then had the opportunity to visit a series of regional open days from the 14 of May to the 27 of June. The purpose of the open day visits were to allow applicants to gain the information they required about the regional orthodontic programmes and allow them to preference their posts when they were contacted with a Journal of Orthodontics, Vol. 39, 2012, 145–146