Offers Process

Offers will be coordinated through the Oriel system by the PNRO, according to your rank and the order with which you ranked your programme preferences.
If you are ranked first, you will be offered your first preference followed by the person who ranked second being offered their first preference, unless it has already been offered to you in which instance they would get their second preference and so on.

The first cascade of offers will be made on 8 November 2023, the final offer upgrade deadline is 29 November 2023 12:00pm.
You will be notified of offers via an email which will ask you to login to your Oriel account.

Important: during the offers window we strongly recommend that you monitor your Oriel and email accounts especially closely to ensure you do not miss notifications of offers.

IMPORTANT: You will be given 48 hours (excluding weekends and bank holidays) to accept or decline an offer.
If you decline an offer you will be removed from the process
If you let an offer expire you will be removed from the process
Once removed from the process you will not be eligible to receive any subsequent offers

Example: How Foundation Pharmacy offers will work

Mark’s top three programme preferences were: Pharmacy A, Pharmacy B and Pharmacy C Mark ranked 1001 following the selection centres, meaning 1000 applicants ranked higher than him. When it was Mark’s turn to be allocated, all of the programmes within Pharmacy A and Pharmacy B had been filled by higher ranking applicants. There was still a programme vacant within Pharmacy C, therefore Mark was sent an offer to this
programme.

Upgrading Offers

The Oriel system allows you to opt into upgrades when accepting an offer.

If you opt in, then should a higher ranked preference become available where an offer is accepted with upgrades, you will be automatically upgraded to this offer, if eligible, up until the upgrades deadline (29 November 2023 12:00pm). You will have the option to opt out of the upgrades at any point during the offers process.

Once you’ve accepted an offer, the Oriel system allows you to opt in to/out of upgrades at any time until the upgrade deadline has passed.

You can choose to opt in for all or some of the programmes you have preferenced higher or lower than the one you received at any point up until the upgrade deadline has passed (29 November 2023 12:00pm). You can also choose to opt out if you change your mind.

If you opt in to upgrades, and an upgrade becomes available, you do not have an option to decline the upgrade and you will not be able to return to your previous offer. Upgrades automatically replace your initial offer. You can also choose to opt out if you change your mind. If you opt in to upgrades, and an upgrade becomes available, you do not have an option to decline the upgrade and you will not be able to return to your previous offer. Upgrades automatically replace your initial offer.

IMPORTANT: You will not have the option to decline the upgrade nor will you be able to revert back to a previous offer. Please see section 6 of the applicant guide available via the link below which has more information about the offers process including screen shots of the Oriel system to help you.

Offer Responses

Once you have been made an offer and have signed into your Oriel account you will be given the following options:

1

Accept: If you accept an offer this means you are 100% satisfied to complete your foundation
training with this employer. Once an offer has been accepted you will be removed from the offers
process unless you choose to opt in to upgrades

2

Decline: If you decline an offer you will not be eligible to receive any subsequent offers. This is
something to consider very carefully when preferencing, you should not preference a programme you
would not be willing to accept.

IMPORTANT: If you let your offers expire you will automatically be removed from the offers process. This removal will be final and you will not be made any subsequent offers.

Enhanced preferencing and offers

Enhanced preferences allow applicants who have not received an offer to amend their preferences at any time during the recruitment process, up until the upgrade deadline for the recruitment round. Preference options may be briefly unavailable when recruiters are matching and preparing offers; preferencing must be closed to allow the matching to run.

Example: An applicant who has received an offer

Meera was offered her 12th preference position and wishes to accept the offer with upgrade. However since making her original preferences Meera’s family situation has changed and it would no longer be viable for her to travel to her 6th,7th, 8th or 9th preferences. Meera is worried that if she could be offered these through the upgrade option. Enhanced preferencing will prevent this situation happening. When Meera receives her offer she will also be able to amend her preferences i.e. she can remove preference 6,7,8 and 9 from her list completely and also add new programmes that were more local to where she needs to live.

Example: An applicant who is yet to receive an offer

Lauren has not yet received an offer; the upgrade deadline is yet to pass. Since submitting her preference options two weeks ago she had had a change in personal circumstances and now wishes to expand her geographical choices to include 10 more programmes. She can do this by logging into her Oriel application and adding to her preference list

What happens after accepting an offer

After you have accepted an offer, and the upgrade window has passed, your information will be released to the employer whose programme you have accepted. The release of employer information will take place in December.

IMPORTANT: The information of successful applicants will not be passed onto employers before December. We advise you not to contact employers until after this date. If the employer has not contacted you by the beginning of February, please contact them then.

IMPORTANT: Offers are subject to employer pre-employment checks such as occupational health, immigration requirements, satisfactory references. Pre-employment checks normally start between six and three months before the programme start date.

Clearing

Depending on the number of programmes left at the end of the offer process, a clearing process to match remaining candidates to available programmes may be undertaken. Where clearing takes place, applicants will have the option to re-preference all of the remaining programmes and offers will then be made in rank order.

Withdrawing from an Oriel offer

There are often large number of applicants who withdraw after accepting their offer. Whilst there are valid unforeseeable reasons for withdrawing we advise applicants to think very carefully before doing so. Withdrawing from a programme once the Oriel offers process is complete carries a number of significant negative ramifications:

  • Displays a level of unprofessionalism.
  • The programme is no longer available to other applicants who wanted it.
  • Leaves employers having to re-recruit at their own expense and time outside of the Oriel system.
  • Potentially means taxpayers money is wasted if the place remains unfilled.

Remember, only preference programmes you are willing to undertake and if you do not wish to accept a programme, decline it before the offers window closes so that it can be offered to another applicant. It is also worth noting that programmes recruited to via Oriel have access to additional HEE support such as Foundation supervisor training and quality management of places.

If you need to withdraw please submit an enquiry to the PNRO via the PGMDE Support Portal