Deanery (NHS)

An NHS Deanery is a regional organisation, within the structure of the UK National Health Service (NHS), responsible for postgraduate medical and dental training. As of June 2008 it appears that deaneries are regarded under UK law as employment agencies, and so are subject to the appropriate UK law.

Role

Each Deanery commissions postgraduate medical and dental education, to standards set by the General Medical and Dental Councils. Deaneries are each advised by a Specialty Training Committee (STC), which includes Consultants.

Effectively, Deaneries work as clearing houses for Specialist Registrar (SpR) training posts in hospitals, dentistry, mental health, public health and primary care. Specialists in the various medical disciplines within Deaneries keep track of training vacancies that arise within the NHS institutions in their Deanery's area. Typically there will be an Associate Dean and a Medical Workforce Officer for each discipline or group of disciplines. The Deanery will advertise for applications by Senior House Officers or Academic Clinical Fellows for available SpR posts and will interview applicants on behalf of the institutions. As the new initiative Modernising Medical Careers takes effect, candidates will be those who have completed specialist training in the new system.

Successful applicants can receive a National Training Number (NTN), which follows them through the system over six years training, covering training costs in whichever NHS posts they occupy. Others may receive a Locum Training Number, which covers training only for one posting; however, recipients remain eligible to apply for an NTN.

Criticisms

Deaneries have been criticised in the past for not providing accurate and detailed information to applicants who have no alternative methods of finding employment within the UK, in particular for failing reliably to tell applicants exactly when and where jobs will start, what hours will be, and what their salary will be.^[1] The BMA have observed "It's hard to imagine another profession where you could start salaried employment without knowing how much you'll be paid in six months' time. That's been the reality for junior doctors for years, but it may be about to change."

As of June 2008, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate have ruled that deaneries should be legally classified as employment agencies, which calls into question the legality of existing recruitment processes.^[2] This has led Remedy UK to call for junior doctors, who are currently employed on a series of short-term contracts, to be given a single unified contract covering the whole process.

EU applicants

Recent changes in UK legislation mean that Deaneries must give preference to applicants from the UK or the European Union.^[3] This is likely over the medium term to change the make-up of the hospital registrar workforce, in which over recent years candidates from developing countries in Asia and Africa have been strongly represented^{[citation needed]}.

References

See also

• Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans