Guidance on selecting referees

This page is to help applicants for entry onto the Specialist Register with a Certificate of Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR) and entry onto the GP Register with a Certificate of Eligibility for GP Registration (CEGPR) choose referees who will provide structured reports in support of their application.

We recommend you provide the names and details of six referees, whom we will contact to obtain structured reports. In our experience, applications where we do not receive structured reports from at least five referees including a current Medical or Clinical Director and a current supervising colleague or senior colleague in the same specialty are not likely to be successful.

Please make sure when nominating your referees that:

• you have their approval before submitting your application
• they are willing to complete a structured report for you
• you have made them aware of the information they will be asked to supply
• you provide them with a copy of your CV
• your CV meets our requirements (opens in a new window).

We will require reports from at least five of your referees, one of whom must be your first referee (see ‘Who to choose’ below).

Before you choose your referees, we recommend that you read our guidance to referees (opens in a new window) to see what we ask them to do.

Who to choose

Your first referee should be your current Medical Director, Divisional Director/Clinical Director, or someone of equivalent seniority; for example, a Superintendent if you are overseas  You can nominate someone responsible for overseeing the running of all departments within your hospital, whether or not they work with you directly, or are known to you personally. However, they should know the outcome of the work of your unit for which they have responsibility and they should be able to obtain the information they need to provide an authoritative reference.   At least two of the reports we ask for should be completed by doctors in the specialty for which you are applying, or a closely related specialty. These doctors should either be on the Specialist Register or GP Register or be of equivalent standing and able to comment from their own direct observations on your current level of expertise.   If you have undertaken recognised Specialty Training or GP training, one of the structured reports should be from your most recent programme director, regional specialty adviser, or educational supervisor.   Other people you can nominate include the head of a clinical department that you currently work for, or have recently worked for;  a training supervisor; or someone to whom you refer patients, who can comment on the level of your specialist clinical competence from their own direct observation.   Please bear in mind that referees who have retired from practice more than three years ago may not be able to comment on your skills on the basis of adequately current specialist knowledge.   If you are unable to arrange for the necessary referees you are strongly recommended to delay your application until you are able to do so.

Period of reference

You should where possible nominate referees who can comment authoritatively from their own direct observation on the last five years of your practice. However, we accept that there may be reasons, such as a career break, for you to name some referees from an earlier period. If you do, you should make your reasons clear.   If your most recent specialist training was more than five years ago, it is advisable to include in your list of referees a training supervisor or other person who can comment authoritatively about your training. Again, we recognise that this may not always be possible but it will strengthen your application.