1The route
Pathway
- Medical School5-6 yrs
- Foundation Training2 yrs
- Broad Based Training2 yrs
- Straight into year 2IMT2, GPST2, Paediatrics ST2 or Psychiatry CT2
- Higher Specialty, after IMT or PsychiatryVaries
- CCT
Four specialties in two years
Six months each in Internal Medicine Training, General Practice, Paediatrics and Psychiatry. In each post, 10% of your time is spent in one of the other three: in a Paediatrics post, for example, you gain experience of managing psychiatric conditions in children.
Then straight into year 2
Complete BBT with satisfactory progress and you go straight into CT2 or ST2 of any of the four, with no further competitive interview. The place is guaranteed in the region you did BBT in (West, North or East); another specialty or another region means applying again through national recruitment. GP and Paediatrics then run through to a CCT. After IMT or Core Psychiatry, higher training is a further competitive application, as for every other trainee.
Seven health boards
You stay in one locality, for hospital and GP posts alike, for both years.
- WestGreater Glasgow & ClydeLanarkshireAyrshire & ArranDumfries & Galloway
- EastTayside
- NorthHighlandGrampian
What would that decision cost you?
Going less than full time, moving up a grade, a London trust, or the same rota in another nation: see what each one does to your take-home before you commit to it.
Test a decision2Applying
When to apply
Round 1, on the UK Medical Recruitment timetable. Posts start on 4 August 2027.
Lead recruiter
NHS Education for Scotland (NES)
Shortlisting
Open to any doctor who meets the person specification, wherever they did their foundation training. There is no self-assessment: the MSRA decides who is interviewed.
Who can apply
Every BBT post is in Scotland, but you do not need to be Scottish or to have trained in Scotland. Doctors from foundation programmes anywhere in the UK can apply, and doctors who did not do UK foundation training can apply with a CREST. The main requirements in the 2027 person specification:
- A medical degree: an MBBS or BMBS, or an equivalent medical qualification.
- Full GMC registration when you apply, and a licence to practise on the day the post starts.
- The right to work in the UK.
- Foundation competences, achieved in the three and a half years before 4 August 2027 and shown in one of the four ways below.
Four ways to show foundation competences
Any one of them is enough.
- You are in a foundation programme affiliated to the UK Foundation Programme Office now.
- You are in a GMC-approved specialty training programme now, with a National Training Number or a Deanery Reference Number.
- You hold a Foundation Programme Certificate of Completion (FPCC) from a UK affiliated foundation programme.
- You have 12 months' medical experience after full GMC registration, and a Certificate of Readiness to Enter Specialty Training (CREST).
How you get to interview
- Longlisting checks your eligibility against the person specification.
- Every eligible applicant sits the MSRA in January 2027.
- Those who pass are ranked on their MSRA score and invited to interview in that order. If there are more than the interviews can take, the rest go on a reserve list and are invited as slots come free.
To be eligible for BBT you must pass every stage of the GP and Core Psychiatry recruitment process, which in 2027 involves sitting and passing the MSRA. You do not have to apply for GP or Core Psychiatry themselves; apply to each one separately if you want to be considered for it as well. If you apply to several specialties that use the MSRA, you sit it once.
3Interview and offers
Interview
Paediatric Clinical Reasoning
10 min
Online, with two paediatric assessors. Each marks you out of 20, 40 in all.
Offers
How the final ranking is put together
MSRA 75%, interview 25%
Final ranking combines your MSRA score and your score at the BBT paediatric interview.
Feedback is automatic
Once the interview window closes every candidate is emailed their score for each question domain, with the assessors' comments.