CESR: a guide to survival

Do you really want this?

This may seem an obvious question, but do you actually want to apply for consultant jobs? Applying for a CESR is a hard slog and can end up being a test of how much you want to be a consultant.

Personally I couldn’t imagine not being a consultant and not having some say in the management and direction of where I was working. This is not the case for everyone, however, as some people do not want to do the management side of the job. If you are happy in your current grade and with what you are doing, you may want to ask yourself whether it’s worth applying.

Is there a good reason for doing it this way?

Getting on to specialty training through open competition and becoming a consultant via that route could be simpler and easier than applying for a CESR. Specialty training provides you with the posts, training, and advice you need to secure a consultant job, whereas staff, specialty, or associate specialist positions are almost entirely concerned with service provision. Much of the motivation for obtaining a CESR is going to have to come from you.

Remind yourself: this is a jog not a sprint

The General Medical Council says that it can take between six and nine months between submitting your CESR application and receiving a decision. However, the process of preparing an application could take a similar amount of time. My advice is to estimate the time it will take to get hold of the evidence you need for your CESR application, then double it.

Get an e-portfolio

An e-portfolio is a good way of: (a) collecting and storing your evidence, and (b) seeing what the “normal” specialty trainees have to collect to prove their competence. Be warned: at the time of writing the electronic version of a portfolio was not being accepted for a CESR application. I had to print off my portfolio and get each page signed and stamped.

LAT posts are good

Applying for a locum appointment for training (LAT) job can ensure that you have some recent experience in recognised posts, so you may not need to provide as much evidence to prove the validity of your previous experience. The other benefit of these posts is that if you have a good and understanding regional education lead, he or she will put you in posts that will supplement your training. I was lucky enough to have one who made sure that the posts I was put in did not duplicate my previous experience.

Don’t try to be perfect

I got very paranoid that if there was anything in my appraisal that suggested I wasn’t ready to be a consultant, this would be frowned on when I submitted my CESR application. When my application was returned, I was commended for identifying gaps in my learning and then resolving them. Appraisals that point to such gaps can be helpful—as long as you can subsequently show that you have filled them.

Get hold of an NHS pension statement

You will have to provide evidence that you worked at all the posts you have listed. The NHS pension scheme keeps a record of every place where you have worked, so asking them for a printout of your pension statement can give you a good list.

Consider everything worth submitting

There used to be only four sections of the application that required evidence; now there are 13. The equality and diversity questionnaire your trust uses, for example, and the hand washing certificate—these things can help provide evidence towards some of the more tricky areas of the application.