New Starter Information.
Welcome to specialty training in the West Midlands, our full welcome pack and letter should have been emailed to you, but is also available on this page.
Your welcome letter will have contained important information on what you needed to do next in order to complete the recruitment process to your post within the West Midlands. If you have not received this, please contact your programmes team.
Please see below for our main contact details for each team (When emailing, please always include your name, programme and GMC/GDC Number):
Requesting a Deferral of Start Date The Gold Guide states that: "...The start of training for foundation, core and specialty training may normally only be deferred on statutory grounds (e.g. maternity/paternity/adoption leave, ill health). For the Defence Medical Academy only, training may also be deferred to meet Defence Medical Services operational requirements.” To request a deferral form, you must contact your programmes team.
Less than full-time training If you wish to apply for less than full-time training (LTFT) please visit our dedicated page for our full policy details and application form: https://www.westmidlandsdeanery.nhs.uk/support/trainees/less-than-full-time-training
Relocation and Excess Travel Our policy on relocation and excess travel expenses can be found here: https://www.westmidlandsdeanery.nhs.uk/support/trainees/removal-and-expenses-guidance
Indemnity Insurance NHS England - Midlands has procured a block indemnity contract for the programmes listed below with Medical Protection Society, https://www.medicalprotection.org/uk. This block cover is different to personal cover – you are advised to check that you have personal cover for yourself. We hope you will take up this opportunity; however, if you DO NOT wish to take up the offer of being a part of the block indemnity cover, please inform us by emailing england.indemnity.midlands@nhs.net by Friday 2nd June. You would then need to make sure you have your own cover in place. Please note that if you have what is called ‘Affiliate Membership’ with another provider, we would like to advise you that this is not full membership, and you would need to consider taking out full membership with that provider or join NHS England’s block cover through MPS. If we do not hear from you by Friday 2nd June, we will assume you do wish to be a part of the block indemnity opportunity. We will then send your details to MPS so that they can contact you about registration. The protection of your personal details is extremely important to us, so we only transfer the relevant information to them. Once MPS have received the information from us, they will begin their process which will include contacting you by email and by post. Please look out for correspondence from them, you should regularly check your junk folder, so you don’t miss their email. You will not be registered automatically, so please do read their information carefully as there will be action needed before the indemnity is in place.
Programmes applicable for block indemnity: Aviation and Space Medicine Community Sexual and Reproductive Health General Practice Genito-Urinary Medicine Occupational Medicine Palliative Medicine Public Health Medicine Sport and Exercise Medicine
Information regarding issuing of new style NTNs
As you may be aware, the GMC have recently asked all UK deaneries and HEE Local Offices to make changes to the format of NTNs and DRNs in order to enable more accurate recording of training, particularly regarding dual training and sub-specialty training where this applies. The process for this is still being finalised so, in order to ensure that trainees are issued with the most up to date reference numbers, there may be some delay to the issuing of NTNs and DRNs for new trainees. The Royal Colleges are aware of these changes, and new trainees should not require their NTN or DRN in order to register. New reference numbers will be issued via email using the information stored in our training database. The tool currently being used is reliant on a trainee having started on a programme to be able to generate the NTN/DRN, as such, if you have not received your reference number within 2 months of starting on your programme, then please contact your programmes team.