If you are looking to apply to a physician higher specialty training (PHST/HST) programme in one of the specialties coordinated by the Physician Specialty Recruitment Office (PSRO) national recruitment process, this website contains detailed information to help you. This covers recruitment to UK training programmes in these specialties in England, Scotland and Wales, and also Northern Ireland for clinical genetics, medical oncology, neurology and palliative medicine.
Completion of a substantive HST programme will lead to eligibility for specialist registration with the General Medical Council.
The recruitment process section of the website is the home to the majority of general information to help you navigate a recruitment round, including: timeline, eligibility criteria, planning your application, applying, interviews and offers. For specialty-specific information such as interview dates and post numbers, interview format and data from previous years, please visit the relevant specialty's page.
In addition to the website, we have produced an 'Applicants' Guide' which overviews how the process works and is a good introduction for those new to specialty recruitment. This is available to download from the document library .
It is advisable to view the relevant person specification for the specialty(ies) to which you are intending to apply.
You may also wish to view competition ratios and scoring from previous rounds, which is available under the 'data' tab within the relevant specialty's page.
Group 1 and Group 2 specialties
The internal medicine curriculum means that higher specialty training programmes that require core-level internal medicine capabilities are categorised into two groups: Group 1 and Group 2; the JRCPTB website details which specialties fall into each group.
- Group 1 - these specialties' programmes start at ST4-level, require the full three years training in internal medicine training (IMT) or equivalent and all programmes will dual specialise with general internal medicine (apart from single accredited general internal medicine).
- Group 2 - programmes start at ST3-level, can be entered after two years of IMT or equivalent and do not involve training in general internal medicine. Many of these specialties also accept trainees from a non-physician pathway.
The group into which a specialty falls impacts on the eligibility criteria.
Stroke medicine
The PSRO also coordinate a national recruitment process for stroke medicine in England and Wales. Please see the stroke medicine section of the website for details about the process.
2027 recruitment
The timeline page contains the major dates for both rounds of the 2027 recruitment process:
- Round 1 - opens for applications at 10am on 19 November 2026 and closes at 4pm on 10 December 2026, for programmes starting from August to December 2027.
- Round 2 - opens for applications at 10am on 13 July 2027 and closes at 4pm 29 July 2027, for programmes starting from February to April 2028. Summary information is available on the round 2 page of the website.
Major changes and points to note
There are some major changes to the process for 2027 recruitment:
- Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act: The Act comes into force for both the shortlisting and offers stages of 2027 recruitment. Details of the criteria to be given priority status will not be published on this website and can be found on the Medical Training Recruitment website.
- Introduction of a maximum number of applications to higher specialties: Applicants will be permitted to submit a maximum of five applications to vacancies included in the same national recruitment round; which includes all specialties covered in the PSRO-coordinated process, as well as any recruited to separately by Northern Ireland.