This section will aim to provide some useful information and contact details for those wishing to undertake a period of their ICM training in the UK. It will not consider the issue of moving permanently to the UK to complete or undertake your ICM training. The issues of eligibility for jobs and visas are considered in separate section.
Types of Job
The section on ‘Postgraduate training in the UK’, details the current system of training in the UK and the associated job titles/acronyms. Given that it is likely that you will be aiming to a finite period of time in the UK, it is highly unlikely that you will be entering the formal specialty training programme. Furthermore, as is discussed in ‘Eligibility for Jobs and Visas’, unless you are either have an EU passport, or already in possession a Tier 1 visa, you will not be eligible to apply for a training programme.
This essentially means that you will be applying for a non-training post, as opposed to a specialty training post (see ‘Postgraduate training in the UK’). Consequently, you will be applying directly to a hospital or trust, instead of applying via a national (colleges) or regional body (deaneries) for a specialty training post. The fact that you will be applying directly to a hospital means that you will essentially be applying for a vacancy that has not been filled by a specialty training programme. Furthermore, given that you are not applying for a training post, much of the information available on the internet regarding UK jobs, for example MMC, deaneries, will not necessarily be immediately relevant to you. It is important to note, as discussed previously, even though it is a non-training post, you will get the same training and education as someone who is doing the job as a training post and furthermore, the CICM may prospectively approve the training anyway.
The level of your training and what you intend to achieve from your time in the UK ITU will influence the type of unit you will wish to work in. A useful place to find details of the training available within individual ITUs is to look via the deanery websites (see ‘Postgraduate training in the UK’: http://www.mmc.nhs.uk/colleges_deanery_recruitment/deaneries.aspx.) It is important to note that, as stated above, you will be most likely applying for a non-training, non-deanery organised job. Nevertheless the deanery websites are a useful source of information about the individual ITUs in their region.
Applying for a Job
For better or for worse, medicine remains a social network, where it is often about ‘who you know rather than what you know’. Accordingly, if you have found your perfect ITU job, in the perfect location, and have the contact details of someone in the unit, far and away the easiest route will be to email/contact them directly. The world of ITU is a small place and many Australian intensivists have friends & contacts in various UK ITUs, so it is well worth publicising your wish to work in the UK.
If you are less specific about either the job or location, or have failed to secure your ideal job via direct contact with the unit, you will have to wait for jobs to be advertised. Whilst jobs may be advertised up to a year beforehand, most commonly it is 3 to 6 months before. Often job adverts have contact details of someone within the ITU. If you were sufficiently organised, you could theoretically find a job advert for your ideal unit then use the contact details contained therein to email the unit directly, potentially arranging a job in advance.
As opposed to Australia, where the training/academic year starts in January, this occurs on the first Wednesday in August in the UK. Whilst MMC has caused jobs to change at various intervals throughout the year, the beginning of August marks the time when most junior medical staff rotate post.
Jobs are advertised in a number of locations.
NHS Jobs | http://www.jobs.nhs.uk | This website enables you to search for jobs in England and Wales, plus has the facility to set-up an email alert of suitable vacancies | ||
NHS Scotland Recruitment | http://www.jobs.scot.nhs.uk | The equivalent of NHS Jobs for Scotland | ||
Health & Social Care in Northern Ireland | http://www.n-i.nhs.uk | There is no direct equivalent of NHS jobs for Northern Ireland. This website does however have links to adverts for job vacancies. | ||
BMJ Careers | http://careers.bmj.com | Jobs are updated once weekly on a Friday on this website. Has the facility to search for specific jobs throughout the UK and setup an email alert | ||
Individual NHS Trust/hospital websites | http://www.google.co.uk | Google the NHS Trust for the area you are interested in |