Last updated: 21 September 2026

Ophthalmology ST1 recruitment is centralised: NHS England South West (Severn) co-ordinates it for the whole country, so every applicant is scored against the same evidence folder and the same self-assessment, wherever they train. This page sets out what the folder contains, how it is submitted and verified, and exactly what the teaching domain is worth — the one domain a course can move.

What the evidence folder is

The evidence folder is the documentary proof behind your self-assessment. You score yourself against each domain when you apply; the folder is what a verification panel then checks. The panel produces a second, verified ranked list, so a self-assessment score that the folder does not support is corrected downwards.

For the 2026 round the folder had 8 domains and a maximum of 47 points, with uploads accepted between 16 January and 2 February 2026. Two rules matter more than most applicants realise:

• One PDF per domain. Everything you want counted in a domain has to be merged into a single file before you upload it.
• Any one piece of evidence can only be used once, against one domain. A certificate that could arguably sit in two places has to be assigned to one of them.

The eight domains

The 2026 folder scored these eight areas:

1. Qualifications
2. Prizes and awards
3. Publications
4. Presentations
5. Quality improvement and audit
6. Teaching
7. Professionalism / MSF
8. Commitment to specialty

Per-domain maxima are set out in the official scoring framework published by Severn with the vacancy — check them there rather than relying on any third-party summary, including this one. The domain names above are as reported for the 2026 round; the weightings were adjusted rather than redesigned from 2025.

The teaching domain, in detail

Teaching is scored in two different ways, and applicants routinely confuse them:

• Training in teaching — having been taught how to teach. This is what a Teach the Teacher course evidences, and it is worth 0.5 points.
• Teaching experience — having actually delivered teaching, and at what level and formality.

Half a point sounds trivial until you look at the competition ratios. Ophthalmology ST1 is one of the pathways where applicants are separated by fractions of a point, which is exactly why the 0.5 is worth claiming and why it is not worth over-claiming.

The ceiling is structural, not durational. No amount of extra course hours moves you above 0.5 — the next tier up requires a university-accredited award of around 60 credits, or at least 8 months full-time or equivalent. A longer course does not help here.

Two certificates are one experience. The criteria state that duplicate experiences will not be scored. If a course issues you a certificate for a self-paced component and another for a live day, that is one claim, not two.

What to submit for the teaching domain

• The certificate of completion, showing the provider, the date and — ideally — the hours.
• A short reflection on what you learned and how you have applied it, if you have one. Several specialties require reflection explicitly; ophthalmology rewards a folder that reads as though a person assembled it deliberately.
• Everything merged into one PDF with the strongest item first.

Assign the course to the domain where it scores, and do not repeat it elsewhere in the folder.

A note on the round you are applying to

Everything above describes the 2026 round, which is the most recent published guidance at the time of writing. The 2027 criteria were expected by 30 September 2026. Before you build your folder, open the current vacancy on the NHS England recruitment site and confirm the domains, the maxima and the upload window against the official documents — they change most autumns.

Official source: Ophthalmology ST1 self-assessment, NHS England Medical Recruitment.

Frequently asked questions

Does a Teach the Teacher course score for Ophthalmology ST1?
Yes — 0.5 points for a recognised course, under training in teaching.

Can I score more by doing a longer course?
No. The tier above 0.5 requires a qualification of roughly 60 credits or 8 months full-time; course length does not bridge that gap.

I have two certificates from the same course. Do they score twice?
No. Duplicate experiences are not scored — it is one claim.

Where does the course go in the folder?
In the teaching domain, in that domain’s single PDF, and nowhere else.