How to Prepare for Your NHS Consultant Interview Without Memorising 152 Pages of a CQC Report

In this first episode of the Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast, Tessa Davis and Becky Platt tackle the core challenges facing final-year trainees and locum consultants getting interview-ready.

They cover:

• CQC reports – what you actually need to focus on for interview, and what’s safe to ignore
  
  
• ‘Tell me about a mistake’ – how to choose an example that’s relatable, human, and safe but still powerful
  
  
• Audit questions – how to structure your answers and use data to stand out as a strong candidate
  
  
• Pre-interview emails – how to approach panel members before interview day without overthinking it
  
  

This episode is all about cutting through overwhelm and getting clarity on the building blocks of good preparation.

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What is Ace Your NHS Consultant Interview?

Welcome to Ace Your NHS Consultant Interview - the podcast for doctors who want to take the stress and guesswork out of their NHS consultant interview prep.

We know how overwhelming it can feel to prep for your consultant interviews when you’re already stretched thin.

Each episode, we’ll break down what actually works - no fluff, no endless reading, just practical steps you can fit into a hectic week. You’ll hear honest advice, real stories, and the frameworks we use with our own students inside the Academy to help you show up confident, prepped, and ready to secure the job you want.

If you’re a final year trainee or locum consultant and you want to prepare, not panic, you’re in the right place.

Hello and welcome to the Ace Your Consultant Interview podcast. I'm Tessa Davis and I'm Becky Platt and if you're a final year trainee or a low-income consultant and you want to prep, not panic, then you're in the right place. So this is the first of our brand new series, our brand new podcast series, where me and you Becky are going to chat about through some interview prep questions, thinking about helping people approach their NHS consultant interviews and we've been doing this for several years now.

We've coached over a thousand people through their NHS substantive consultant interviews so we thought it'd be nice to get together, have a chat and troubleshoot some common things that people struggle with. So let's start with a question. We're going to have a question of the week which is a question that we've been asked by one of our academy students.

So what have we got for this one Becky? Yeah sure, so we get lots of questions thrown at us every single week. It's usually a great variety of questions. This particular student asked us, can you please guide how much of the CQC report I should remember in terms of details? I read 152 pages and I managed to make notes on 11 of them but I'm still having difficulty to keep it all in my mind.

Yeah, so this is a pretty common question and everyone should read the CQC report of the job they're applying for. 152 pages, I don't know what the average length of a CQC report is, that's pretty hefty. I don't know that anyone's going to reasonably read through 150 pages and remember it, probably not even remember 11 pages.

So I think the key thing here is to definitely read the content about your particular team or service. Realistically, they're probably not going to ask you about something that is related to another part of the hospital unless there's some relationship between you and them and there was a big thing. So I would say read the part about your hospital and look for anything significant.

So if there's significant stuff there, they might ask you about it in your interview. So if there's important stuff there, make a note of it, try and remember it and I think importantly, think about what you would do to address it. What sort of questions, Becky, do you think would come up or likely come around this in the interview? I think people often get asked questions around how would you address the findings in our recent CQC report.

So maybe if there's something that's come up around patient safety, let's think of an example that there may be something around in an A&E department, a particular department has struggles to keep, you know, tabs on what's happening in the waiting room. They don't consistently have a nurse in the waiting room. So maybe if that's come up in a CQC report of a trust that you're applying for, you could think, okay, as the CIC, the consultant in charge of that shift, how could I reasonably address that to improve safety in the waiting room? There may also be some strategies that you know that that trust is employing.

That'd be great if you had a bit of knowledge about that. But equally, if there's stuff that you can do day to day to make things a bit safer, you should talk about that in your interview. Yeah, and like you mentioned, some of the things we will talk about what to do in your pre-interview meetings in a future episode.

But actually, when you go to these pre-interview meetings, that's when you will get some ideas about what they're doing to address these, because you can if something significant come up in a CQC report, you can bet the team will be responding to it, because that's what they have to do. And they will be, you know, not just as patient safety, patient care, the exec will want to make sure that they address these changes. So everyone's going to be aware of it.

I think sometimes the common things that I see on CQC reports are about not everyone doing their stat man training, and also about medicine storage. So if you see that in your CQC report, I think it's not I'm not saying that they shouldn't be addressed. But I think it's a very common thing.

And I think it's unlikely to be something notable that's that's going to come up in the interview. And the other thing is just that if there's if there is nothing if you read it, and there's nothing about your department that is of note, or the last report that you can see was done years ago, then in reality, they probably won't ask you about it in the interview, they're not going to ask you about it if it's not relevant, they're going to pick relevant questions. So if you read it, and there's nothing relevant, that's fine, just know that you've you know, you're aware of it.

But it's unlikely to come up and you can drop it in that you've read it if you want to in another in another answer. But if there's stuff that's significant, then it's quite reasonable that they'll ask about it. And if you haven't read it, you'll look very silly, and you'll feel very embarrassed.

It's easy to find. So you just search online and you'll be able to find Yeah, you can find your latest CQC report. And again, okay, the other thing I would do around that is I would just have a quick Google of the trust.

Just make sure that there's nothing absolutely mega that's coming up about this trust in the news this week. Because I think you do need to have a bit of a knowledge about what's on their mind, and what they are in the news for whether that's something good or something bad. Yes.

And if it's something bad, and I think it's important to know, you don't, it's not that you need to mention it. It's maybe more about just being sensitive to it. So it's more I would say, sort of skirting around it, dealing with it sensitively.

But knowing that context is important, because otherwise, you could wade in saying something that's, you know, very insensitive, or shows a lack of awareness about what's going on. And it could rub people up the wrong way. Particularly, if it's something live, it will be stressful for them, and probably want to give it a wide berth.

Okay, so next, what we thought we'd do in these episodes is look at examples, because people always get asked, like, tell me about a time when you made a mistake, tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a colleague. And choosing the examples is really important. So what we're going to do in each of these episodes is look at one example that we've been given by one of our students and talk about whether it's good or it's bad.

So what have we got for this week? So this week, we've got somebody who gave us an example of a mistake they'd made. And what they did, they took some bloods from a baby, and they put the bloods in the bottles, but then they put the wrong lids on the bottles. And so then the bloods couldn't be processed by the lab.

So obviously, that baby then had to have repeat blood samples taken. Okay, so what do we, do we think this is a good example or a bad example? What are your thoughts? I actually really like this as an example. I think, I think it's good, because it's a common mistake.

And it happens, we can all imagine that when we're busy, we're, you know, taking bloods from a small child, that could easily happen. And it's not terrible, there's no real harm. Okay, we're going to have to take bloods from the baby again.

And so it is a mistake, because there is some impact there. But it's not awful, awful. And also, it's quite relatable.

I think with all of these mistakes, we don't want you to think about the worst thing that's ever happened to you in your practise. We need something that anyone on the panel could sit there and go, yeah, I could imagine that happening. Yeah, I mean, with something like this, I've done it before.

Have you done it before? Put the wrong lids on the wrong bottles? Done it before. Put the wrong lids on, send it to the lab. They tell you you've mixed the something with the something, and they can't correct them.

And, and it's, yeah, it is. So it's common. And that is exactly what you want.

What you don't want is some weird and wonderful thing, you know, that is just distracting, because I think that the important thing is with these questions is remember why they're asking you the question. They're asking you because they want to hear about how great you are at dealing with error, how you do it sensitively, how you're respectful to the parents, to the team, you know, the governance process. That's the point of the question.

And it's not about the, wow, that's amazing. That story is amazing. Tell me more.

And so if you spend either spend too long talking about the story, or it's such a like crazy or massively interesting story, the panel's going to be distracted thinking about that story in their heads. Whereas when you hear this one, you don't really spend a lot of time thinking about it, because you know how it happened. It happens all the time.

And I think that's Yeah, it's a good example. One of the things I think people will say like, is it a big enough deal? So do you think was this really a big enough mistake? So yeah, what do you what? What do you reckon? I think there needs to be some impact, right? And there is some impact here. You know, we've got to bleed a baby again.

That's that's not ideal, is it? But we haven't caused any major or lasting harm to this child. So I think yeah, there does need to be some impact. But we don't want people to be thinking, oh my god, you know, that patient ended up having to go to ITU because of Becky's mistake.

That's just terrible. And that's not where we want to be. You need to be able to show some regret, and to have a reason to apologise for the family and make things right.

And also there needs to be some learning for you around that. And so ideally, when you deliver this mistake example, you'll talk about some steps that you went through to rectify it. And then you'll be able to talk about your learning.

So you might say, so now I've got a particular process where I put the bottle right next to that lid, or I double check it before I put it on or whatever you do, just to make sure that you don't, you know, that you avoid that mistake again in the future. And I think the governance, so name checking the governance process when you're answering this is important as well. You made a mistake, the bloods have gone off, you've had to redo them.

This should be reported as an incident report or a DATIX. It's not necessarily going to be escalated as, you know, not the worst mistake. But I think knowing that that process has gone through, and that's part of when you talk to the family, you say, you know, I'm sorry, we need to take the bloods again.

And you would explain like, this was a mistake, and it's gone through the governance, there's a DATIX submitted. So I think name checking that when you're talking about your steps is important, because I think it's easy just to get focused in the how you rectify it, how you make sure things are okay. So yeah, I think it's a good example.

I think this is a nice, solid, safe example. There's just one other thing that comes to mind is that when people are practising these as an answer, at the end, one thing that's really helpful to do is at the end of the example, you say I did this, bloods were bottled, lids were mixed up, I had to take the, realised I'd sent the wrong ones to the lab because the lab called up. And then you have to say at that point, I realised I'd made a mistake.

Because I think the ownership part is important. And it can be hard to say that in an interview, because you're having to say, you know, it's a fair cop, I did it. But I think just the act of saying these words, even though it seems like a small thing makes a big difference.

So it doesn't sound like you're just like pretending it wasn't your fault, or there were lots of other reasons, or you just say I made a mistake. And then you say and I felt terrible. So I made a mistake.

And I felt terrible because I knew I was going to have to bleed this baby again, and the family were already stressed. Something like that, I think adds a bit of a personal touch to the interview and helps connect people with the panel rather than just rattling through. So I told them and I did this and I called the lab and it was all sorted.

And then we so that Yeah, I think that's a useful extra step to Yeah, show some vulnerability. Just be a normal human. That's what we want.

It's hard because people don't want to, to show that, you know, vulnerability when you're trying to impress people. And the whole the whole prep for the interview is like trying to show them how great you are. But then you also have to tell them, actually, I did this.

And I think the tendency is to find something where it wasn't really your fault, or it wasn't really your mistake. But I'd really I think the best way to do it is an example just like this, actually, where you you have made a mistake, but it's not a disaster. And it's a relatable mistake.

So solid example. This is a good one. Good.

Yeah. Okay, so then the next thing we're going to do is think about breaking down an interview question each week. So this week, we're going to break down quite a common question, which is tell me about a time that you were involved in an audit.

So I'd say this comes up fairly commonly. And in fact, when we did, we did a breakdown of all of the questions we've had from all the people who go through, you know, over 1000 people through the academy, we've broken down all their interview questions. And actually, a version of this question comes up in 40% of interviews.

So it's pretty sometimes it's about QI rather than audit, but it's pretty common question. So what do you think the best way to approach it is? So hopefully, in your prep, you will have thought of an example of an audit that you've been involved in. So this will be one of your examples.

Hopefully, you might have this as one of your unique selling points that you've prepared that you're going to plan to weave into various different answers in your interview. So this will be ready to roll. And you can just bring this example out once the panel asks this question.

And so I think I would generally break down most of these kind of interview questions into three sections, so that you can give the panel a bit of breadth in your answer, but also give them some some depth about exactly what you got into. And you might break this down into three sections, like how I identified the problem, and how I collected data, and what were my outcomes and impact. And so I'd probably just then go through each of those three sections.

What is that sound reasonable to you? Yeah, I think so. I think a lot of people feel like their audits not special. So they're like, Oh, everyone does audit, which is true, because it's like an integral part of training.

So everyone will have done an audit. But what you're trying to do is show what's good about your audit. So that thing that you mentioned about the data is so important, because it's the difference in saying, you know, I did an audit and on doing pain scores in patients in ED to I did an audit where on pain scores doing pain scores on patients in ED, where I led a team of four people, where we collected data on 100 patients to get baseline data.

And we found that only 20% of people were having pain scores, we then implemented x, y, and zed to ensure that the practise changed. And there was a re audit done, you know, two months later, three months later of 100 patients. And we found that the rates had increased from 20% to 80%.

And so something like that, even if you've not done the full, you know, audit, a second audit cycle, or it's not a QI project, but bringing in that data makes a massive difference to how it comes across to the panel. And I think, yeah, often, people know in their head, you know, in your head what your project look like, but the panel doesn't know. And unless you tell them with specifics, they'll just be imagining whatever their audit that they did on pain scores was or whatever their last audit was.

So I think adding in the data and the outcomes makes a huge difference. Yeah, I think also this, this kind of question is a really nice opportunity for you to be able to show that you can lead a team, and that you can set directive that you can set priorities and timelines and hold people to account for that. And it's also an opportunity to show maybe how you support more junior colleagues to get in order to get involved in audit.

So actually, there's a lot that you can do with this question, even if you know, you're not the only person in the world who's audited pain scores in your department. And so it doesn't need to be unique in that true sense. It just needs to be a bit about you to show what particular skills you've developed doing that.

And what are you bringing to this team now as a result of that. And also, it doesn't need to be an audit necessarily in the particular area that you're applying for. Because it's about it's actually about the skills of audit of evaluating what your practise is of thinking about changes.

That's that's what you're showing the panel. It's not actually that you're an expert in pain scores. And it's it's that you know how to set up an audit, identify a problem, set up an audit, lead the team, make the chain or present the results, think about what you do with the results.

That's that is the skill. So people, you might feel like you want you can't use an audit because it was from a certain length of time ago or from not from the current speciality or in, but actually think it think about the skills that you've developed from that project. And if they are strong, then that's a good audit project to bring in.

Also, I think it can be used at different in different ways. So although we're talking about a specific audit question, like the things you've mentioned, Becky, the leadership, the teamwork, these the challenges of making change, maybe conflicts within this team. These are themes that you can actually bring out to answer other interview questions.

And when you do that, it gives you a chance to talk about your audit, even if they didn't ask you about it, you'll get a chance to talk about it and use all these specifics as well. So I think just keeping an open mind that when you've got a great project that you've thought through the specifics of you can use at different times in your interview, it doesn't you don't have to be directly asked about it. Yeah, I think that's very useful, because let's say you get asked a question about conflict with a colleague later on in your interview, you can say, well, actually, when I was doing my audit on pain management, and I had a conflict with a colleague, because we'd agreed this and this.

And actually, they weren't delivering on their part of the agreement. And so I had to address this by doing this and this. And then it's another chance to remind the panel that you've been involved in this audit that had an impact, as well as being able to show them that you can answer that specific question around managing conflict.

Yeah. Good. And this is definitely worth practising this question, because it's likely to come up something around audit or QI.

I don't think it matters whether it's audit or QI. I don't think they usually, it's usually quite a broad question. So I would pick whichever is your strongest and get that ready to use in your interview.

Right. Cool. Okay.

And then the last part of that we're going to talk about is a tip and trick for the week. So that's what we're going to talk about. So one thing that we've picked up that's helpful for people in their interviews, and we're going to talk about the dreaded pre-interview panel emails.

So this is when you get told you're shortlisted, you're very excited, you got your interview in whatever, a week, two weeks, and your job is to contact the panel and try to meet with them. So what people are very nervous about doing this, because you're having to contact very important people, what's the best way to approach that? Yeah, people get themselves in the right pickle about this, don't they? It's important to do it though, right? Because actually, you're hoping to be able to meet these panel members before your interview, to build some sort of connection with them, and to gain some key intel around the department that you can then use. So I think this just needs to be a brief, friendly email.

Dear so-and-so, I'm very happy that I've been shortlisted for the post of X, and my interview is on whenever. I'd really like to be able to meet you before the interview, if that's possible. I appreciate that you're really busy, but could you let me know if you can make some time for that? Just keep it brief and to the point.

They will essentially be expecting this email from the candidates, so it's fine to do it, you're not overstepping in any way. No, I think that's the thing, it's like a really big deal if you're the interviewee, sending this email to the medical director or whatever, it's very stressful because they're all so important. But on the other end, if you're on a substantive panel, you know that people are going to be contacting you, so it's not such a big deal for them.

And I think you're right, you want to keep it brief, they're busy people, they want to know what the point of why you're contacting them is. So I think I would attach, would you attach a CV? I think I would attach a CV, would you? Do you think you would do it for that? Or just no, maybe you don't need to for that. I don't know, because I feel like they've already been shortlisted.

They should know, they've seen your CV, that's true. So we won't attach CV, we're just going to keep it brief. Really looking forward to the interview, could we meet up for a chat? Okay, so you're going to send these out.

And what, so sometimes people tell you who's on the panel, they will tell you, if they haven't told you who's on the panel, it's okay to ask. So you can ask the HR, whoever the HR person is that contacts you to invite you for the interview, ask who's on the panel. And if they might say we're not telling you, or they might say we don't know, and that's fine.

So maybe they've not got the panel together yet. It's fine if they're not releasing the panel information. But what you don't want to happen is that someone else who's going up against you for the job is doing these pre-interview meetings, and you're not, because they've asked who's on the panel, and you haven't asked, it's not going to look great.

It doesn't mean you can't get the job. But it doesn't look great if they've they're interviewing, you know, a number of candidates, and someone's gone to the trouble of contacting everyone on the panel and meeting them, and the other one they haven't heard from, it's not ideal. And sometimes people feel nervous to ask, but actually, it's fine to ask.

It's okay to ask. Yeah. And actually, I've just remembered, I was speaking to somebody recently, who got told in their post interview feedback, that they didn't have enough job specific knowledge, and they should have met the panel.

And this, and this person said, but I did meet the people that I knew were on the panel, but he hadn't told me the others. And the clinical lead said, well, he should have asked. Yeah, which seems a bit harsh to me.

It's harsh. It's harsh, but it does just go to show that, yeah, I mean, yeah. Ask them.

Just ask them. They can say no. You're not losing anything.

They're not going to be, you know, they're not gonna be offended that you asked. The other thing that commonly comes up is about who, which of the panel members to contact? Do you contact the college rep and so on? And I would say, just contact anyone they give you a name for, contact them. And it's actually up to them, whether they meet with you or not.

It's not for you to say, I thought you wouldn't want me to contact you. Like, you don't know. So sometimes the college reps do meet.

I think often they will say they're not meeting. But if they say, I'm not meeting with any of the candidates. I'll see you on the day.

That's fine. That's your job done. So your job is either to get them to say, no, I'm not meeting with anyone, but thank you for reaching out.

I'll see you at the interview or to get them to say, yes, I'd be happy to meet. And then you need to make that happen. And that's the next step.

And we will talk about that in next week's podcast. I suppose the other thing that comes up about the pre-interview emails is follow up. So if you don't hear from them, because sometimes you'll fire up, you're very nervous, you fire off the email and nothing happens.

So it's a bit unknown. You know, you've emailed, say, the chief exec. What should you do then if they don't reply? Oh, yeah, this feels super awkward to people, doesn't it? And I think it's all right to follow up.

You know, not the next day. But if you've got time... It's been two hours and I haven't heard from them. Yeah, you still... What's wrong with you? You haven't come back to me.

Look, I think if you had maybe two weeks notice on your interview, you know, you emailed them. It's been a week. Then I would just email again and say, hi, just checking in.

Appreciate you're busy. If you have got time to meet for the interview, I'd really appreciate it. So I think it's fine to send a follow up email.

Probably one follow up is enough, I would say. I reckon it depends on the time, doesn't it? Because if you've got four weeks to your interview, you could probably... I think you could probably fit in another one. But yeah, I mean, if you've got a week, you're not wanting to harass them.

That's not going to help. But there's just a lot of reasons why someone might not have replied. And I think it's not... A no is a no.

A no, I'm not meeting with you. That's the end of the line. But a not reply, you don't really know what's going on.

It could be they missed the email. Maybe your email went to junk. Maybe they have terrible inbox management and they haven't got to it.

Or maybe they forgot or maybe they thought they replied. So there are a lot of reasons that someone might not reply, not all of which mean I don't want to meet you. And so because of what we've said before, that you don't want to be at a disadvantage to your competitors, the follow up is important.

And again, keep it brief. Just following up on the previous email. I know you're really busy and I'm not sure if you're able to meet or want to meet, but I just wanted to see if you had the time.

And just a gentle follow up at the appropriate distance so that you're not kind of annoying them, but you're still being active and trying to make it happen. Great. And next week we'll talk about the actual pre-interview meetings because then you have to go... Once you do the email, but then you actually have to go and meet them.

And make that meaningful. So we'll talk about that next week. So thank you.

First episode. Great work. Right.

Job done. We'll talk again next week. Let's do that.