spacer
NHS Education for Scotland Logo

Scottish Medical Training

Scotland - the home of medical excellence

The  South East Region has fourteen Foundation Programmes. S12 is the Specialised  Foundation  Programme. Further information about Specialised  Programmes can be found here.

This is a recruitment website and is not used to provide information for current trainees. Current Foundation trainees should visit the Scotland Deanery website for information about their training.

All rotations are indicative and subject to change. Please note, from 2021 to 2023, the number of Scottish Foundation F1 and F2 posts are being increased. The main effect is that by 2023, 50% of all Scottish F2 trainees will experience a block in General Practice. Enhanced community exposure during Foundation training is part of both the recent UK Foundation Programme Review and Scottish Government Health Department policy.

The South East region F2 posts will have a variety of posts including Emergency Medicine, GP, Psychiatry, Medicine, Surgery and some other specialties. The exact mix of F2 posts in each programme will change over the next 2 years as the new posts are created and the programmes rebalanced.

F2 Allocation

Your F1 year is automatically allocated by using your preferences and recruitment score.

For your F2 posts, you are usually asked to submit your ranking preferences around October/November. You will be given the list of individual F2 posts available within your Group to rank in order of preference. It is likely that you will be allocated one post from the top third of your preferences, one from the middle third and one from the lower third. The main variable determining post availability is the preferences of the other Foundation doctors in your programme. Your Foundation Programme Director will coordinate this allocation process within your Group. They will consider your preferences, while ensuring a broad range of different specialties are experienced, balancing both the individuals' training needs and overall allocation for trainees in their Foundation Programme. The F1 recruitment score is not used in this process.

The F2 allocations are usually announced in February.

Over the two years of Foundation training in South-East, all trainees will have a minimum of one post in Edinburgh and one post out with the city. This ensures a balanced programme involving Teaching Hospital and District General Hospital experience. 

A maximum of three surgical posts will be permitted over the two-year programme. Surgical posts include general, urology, breast, plastic, ENT, colorectal, cardiothoracic, vascular, paediatric and orthopaedic surgery. Emergency Medicine and O&G are not surgical posts.

No repeat posts are permitted eg Royal Infirmary Renal Medicine in F1 and F2.

Example: Duncan is allocated to Scotland as his Unit of Application. He ranks his Group preferences and is allocated to S01. He then ranks his Programme preferences and is allocated to S01001 for his F1 year. During F1, he is sent a list of options for F2. These options are still within S01. He ranks his preferences from 1 to 15 and is allocated an individually constructed Programme in Emergency Medicine, General Practice and General Adult Psychiatry for his F2 year.

For all enquiries regarding foundation training in Scotland please contact sfas@nes.scot.nhs.uk.


Search Foundation
Training Opportunities


South East Region Locations

View South East Region Locations in a larger map

Top