Appealing

If you are reading this because you are considering to file an appeal, then I am sorry you are on this page. It is definitely a very stressful time to go through. Having gone through an appeal myself, it is a time of great confusion, a time of disappointment, frustration and grief. If you do file an appeal, then you will need to have a lot of patience. The process can take weeks. But it is not necessarily futile!

The UKFPO is not like the GMC.

Filing an appeal with the GMC is a daunting task. The GMC rarely makes any mistakes from what I have come to know.

The UKFPO, however, has made mistakes with my application and accepted appeals. I hope to illustrate this when I write about my experience in detail at a later date. This does not mean appealing will always work in your favour. It just means you should not loose hope.

You can appeal a decision made by the UKFPO when you feel the outcome of a decision they made is clearly wrong or if there is a lot of ambiguity.

You do not need to pay any fee’s for an appeal.

You need to fill in the Appeal Form found on the UKFPO website (for your specific year). You will be asked to fill in the details on the form in. There are 4 sections to the form.

Section no. 1: Applicant Details

  • your surname and first name
  • your oriel number
  • current address (and postcode)
  • telephone number and contact number
  • e-mail

Section no. 2: Criteria for Appeals

There are 2 grounds on which to file an appeal:

  1. The process was not applied with appropriate diligence or due care
  2. Decisions regarding your application were made in a prejudicial way

You can choose both or just one.

Section no 3: Applicants explanation of grounds for appeal

There appeal letter it’self. This requires you to fill in a 1-side A4 page appeal (the committee will not consider anymore than 1 side!).

Section no 4: Declaration

Finally, signing off that you have provided truthful information, that you understand the appeals process, and that you give permission for information in your application to be used in anonymised form for review and evaluation of the process. You will be required to fill in your:

  1. Name
  2. Date

Now you have completed the form.

Before the deadline, you will be required to send the form to appeals@foundationprogramme.nhs.uk. Also note that you CAN NOT send the appeal form before the appeals starting date.  So carefully read the form!

I believe you are also allowed to provide supportive documents with your appeal. This can be anything from your IELTS results, the CSA report, or any additional document you might think will help your appeal.

You can file an appeal at 2 points in the process.

  1. When you apply for eligibility during June- August and the outcome is clearly wrong. In my case, my IELTS report was not uploaded with my application. As a result, the UKFPO rejected my application. I appealed their decision and thankfully my appeal was granted. The appeal process will take about 3 weeks.
  2. When you have given your CSA exam and you receive en e-mail stating that you failed the exam when there is strong suspicion that you did not or ambiguity. Here, the appeal process  takes about 11 days. The reason is because at this point the Foundation Program interview process will have already started. Important dates regarding this process are as follows:
    1. Appeal opening date: 16 November 2017
    2. Deadline for appeal: 23 November 2017
    3. Committee review date: 30 November 2017
    4. Outcome of Appeal: 4 December 2017

What happens after I submit my appeal?

Once you have submitted the appeal, it will take about 1 week for the UKFPO to go through the appeal themselves and check for any clerical errors. At this point, if a clerical error was made, they will notify the candidate and discuss this further with you to find the best possible solution.

If no clerical error was found, the appeal is forwarded to an independent committee consisting of at least 3 members, one Doctor and 2 University/ Education Professionals. This committee will determine if the Appeal is accepted or not.

The outcome of the appeal becomes known shortly after that.

Tips for filing an appeal

  • Sit down and try to find out what happened.
  • If the cause of failing the eligibility is not clear, then contact the UKFPO. Ask them for an explanation and further clarity.
  • If you have failed the CSA, wait for the report. This can be an agonising 2 weeks. But you need to see your report, find out how you scored on each station, the passing mark for each station, the examiners comments, and individual “raw scores” per category.
  •  Start writing the appeal statement. For the new 6 days until the deadline, keep going back and forth over your statement.
  • Ask people to review your statement.  Ask your GP to sit down with you and help you. Ask colleagues. Ask your Consultant or the Teacher at the course you attended.

Don’t loose hope.

A few important things to note

In 2017 (my exam experience) –

I know of people who did very well, scoring a total of 321 and more (out of a total 400) who failed 1 station, who ended up failing the exam.

And at the same time other candidates scored 281 with 2 failed stations, and passed the CSA.

Make of that what you will. There is a lot of confusion as the examiners comments are also not very negative.

Let’s see what the outcome of the appeals process will yield…