Core Surgical Training CT1 portfolio 2027: grade checker and scoring guide

The Core Surgical Training portfolio carries no points and no published total. You choose a letter from A to E for each row of an index page: two rows in Knowledge, Skills and Development, one in Patients, Partnership and Communication, and two in Colleagues, Culture and Safety. The panel uses those letters as a guide. Shortlisting runs on the MSRA alone, so the portfolio only counts once you’re among the roughly 1,200 candidates invited to interview, where the portfolio station is 45% of the final score. Applications are open from 10am on Thursday 22 October to 4pm on Thursday 19 November 2026. Everything you list has to be completed by Friday 19 February 2027, the portfolio submission date, and the evidence itself goes up between 19 and 24 February 2027.

CST portfolio (index page and evidence, assessed at the interview portfolio station) points at a glance

2027 criteria (portfolio guidance page last reviewed 27 October 2026) · Last checked 31 October 2026

Each domain is graded on the best descriptor you can evidence. No points or total are published, so the grades below are the official wording only.

The portfolio is not used for shortlisting and has no published points. Shortlisting is on the MSRA: "This will form the basis of your shortlisting score." "Following the release of MSRA results approximately the top 1200 candidates will be invited to interview and upload evidence for the portfolio station." At interview: "Your total score will be a combination of MSRA (10%), portfolio station score (45%) and management and clinical station score (45%)." For 2027: "You will no longer be asked to complete self-assessment on Oriel. Instead, you will be asked to upload an index page with the appropriate entries for each domain (using a letter from A-E instead of a score)." The 2027 guide has three domains: "The portfolio assessment has been revised to align more closely with 3 of the 4 domains of the GMC's Good Medical Practice"; "The fourth domain, Trust and Professionalism, will continue to be assessed through the interview process." The letter is a guide, not a score: "The score acts as a guide for assessors during the portfolio station ... Assessors will review the evidence, then ask candidates some questions about their portfolio and then allocate a final score". "Candidates will only be asked questions about 'Patient, Partnership and Communication' and the 'Safety and Culture' domains". The station is marked 0-6 per element ("0 - No Evidence ... 6 - Outstanding"; portfolio station elements "Skills and knowledge" and "Presentation: Content, Presentation skills, Questioning"). No letter-to-points conversion and no domain weights are published.

CST: every domain, what scores and the maximum

Domain	What scores (official wording)	Max
Knowledge, Skills and Development: Operative experience	A Involvement in 40 or more cases B Involvement in 30-39 cases or more C Involvement in 20-29 cases D Involvement in 11-19 cases E Involved in 10 cases or less/no evidence Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. "Only 1 consolidation report upload is permitted. Please amalgamate all specialties onto 1 report and have this signed by a supervisor on every page."	A
Knowledge, Skills and Development: Surgical experience	A I have attended a surgical taster week (minimum 5 days, can be non-consecutive days) (see additional notes below) Or I have undertaken an elective in a surgical specialty as a medical student (minimum 4 weeks) B I have not undertaken a surgical taster/elective/surgical placement Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. Only two indicators (A or B). "Only one document should be uploaded for surgical experience/elective/placement or taster. If more than one is uploaded, only the first letter will be reviewed by the assessor panel."	A
Patients, Partnership and Communication	A I have won the top prize for delivering an oral presentation at a national or international medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being selected to do so A I am first author (please see appendix for definition) of a PubMed/WoS-cited publication (or in press) Not including a case report or editorial letter A I have worked with local educators to design and organise a face-to-face teaching programme (a series of sessions defined as 4 or more) to enhance organised teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students. And, I have delivered at least 4 sessions of that teaching A I have created and delivered a Podcast or Webinar which has had a demonstrable impact. This was surgically themed A I took the lead on designing, producing and implementing a form of patient information leaflet which has had a demonstrable impact. This was surgically themed B I have delivered an oral presentation at a national or international medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being selected to do so B I am first author of a prize-winning poster or oral poster presentation presented at an international or national medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being invited/selected to do so B I am first author of a PubMed/WoS-cited publication of a case report or editorial letter (or in press) Or, I have written a book chapter related to medicine which has been published (not self-published) B I have worked with local educators to design and organise a teaching programme (a series of sessions defined as 4 or more) to enhance organised teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students in an online format (please see appendix for definition of online). And, I have delivered at least 4 sessions of that teaching B I have created and delivered a Podcast or Webinar which has had a demonstrable impact B I took the lead on designing, producing and implementing a form of patient information leaflet which has had a demonstrable impact C I have provided regular teaching for healthcare professionals or medical students over the last year (4 or more sessions/year) D I am first author for a poster or oral poster presentations presented at an international or national medical meeting convened by an accredited institution after being invited/selected to do so D I have given an oral presentation at a regional medical meeting after being selected to do so D I am a Cited Collaborative author (please see appendix for definition) as part of a research collaborative publication E None/other Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. "Points are not cumulative, please pick the option which you feel scores you the most points." "All events at which a presentation is made or journals to which an article is submitted must have an element of peer review." Presentations, publications, teaching, podcasts, webinars and patient leaflets all compete for this one letter.	A
Colleagues, Culture and Safety: Quality improvement project or audit	A I was involved as Lead in all aspects of a surgically themed clinical audit or QI project that has demonstrated change (such as, second cycle/closed audit loop) B I was involved as Lead in all aspects of a clinical audit or QI project that has demonstrated change (such as, second cycle/ closed audit loop) C I was involved as a contributor in a clinical audit or QI project that has demonstrated change (such as, second cycle/ closed audit loop) D I was involved in a clinical audit or QI project E None/other Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. "Please choose a scoring option based on a single quality improvement QI project/audit."	A
Colleagues, Culture and Safety: QI or audit presentation	A Applicant presented both cycles of data or presented the intervention and change aspects of a project at a meeting B Applicant presented one cycle of the project at a meeting C Applicant did not present any aspect of the project Graded on the single best descriptor you can evidence. Only available if you were at least a contributor (A, B or C) in the QI/Audit domain. "A copy of the audit presentation must be provided to allow for presentation point scoring."	A
Total		Not published

Dates for this round

• 21 October 2026, 5pm Advert appears source
• 22 October 2026, 10am Applications open source
• 19 November 2026, 4pm Applications close source
• 5 January 2027 MSRA window source
• 16 February 2027 Invites to interview sent expected source
• 19 February 2027 Evidence deadline (all achievements must be completed by this submission date) source
• 19 February 2027 Evidence upload portal opens (index page and portfolio) source
• 24 February 2027 Evidence upload portal closes source
• 1 March 2027 Interviews (portfolio station and management/clinical station) source
• 6 April 2027, 5pm Initial offers released source 1 source 2

What you can still add before 19 February 2027

What each of these adds is the difference between the option you would reach and the one you already hold, so it can be nothing if you hold that option already. The calculator works out the gain from your own answers.

• Knowledge, Skills and Development: Operative experience. Assist or perform supervised cases and log them on eLogbook (www.elogbook.org.uk); the consultant sign-off can be collected before the February upload. Start by 19 February 2027. Cases count if they are done by the submission date ("All achievements / evidence must be completed by the submission date of Friday 19 February 2027."). Each case counts as it is done, so start now, and leave time for the consultant to sign every page before you upload.
• Knowledge, Skills and Development: Surgical experience. Complete a surgical taster of at least 5 days (non-consecutive allowed) and get a supervisor letter on letterhead with dates, hospital, GMC number and what you did. Start by 12 February 2027. Our advice, not an official date: five working days (Fri 12, Mon 15, Tue 16, Wed 17 and Thu 18 February 2027) is the latest run that finishes before the Friday 19 February 2027 submission date. A taster completed by 19 February 2027 counts, but one merely booked (not yet completed) scores 0, so arrange it with a department well before then and get the supervisor's signed letter in time for the upload.
• Patients, Partnership and Communication. Fastest route to A: with local educators, design a face-to-face teaching programme of 4 or more sessions and deliver at least 4, collecting formal feedback and a consultant letter. Or deliver an oral at a national meeting after being selected (B), or a regional oral (D). "All presentations require personal or virtual attendance". Start by 21 January 2027. Our advice, not an official date: four weekly sessions (Thursday 21 and 28 January, 4 and 11 February 2027) are the last comfortable run before the Friday 19 February 2027 submission date, leaving time for the consultant's letter. A presentation counts once it is given, so it must be delivered by 19 February 2027.
• Colleagues, Culture and Safety: QI or audit presentation. If you were at least a contributor to a closed-loop project, present the cycle(s) at a departmental, governance or other meeting and get a letter or programme naming you as presenter. Start by 19 February 2027. The presentation must be given by the submission date ("All achievements / evidence must be completed by the submission date of Friday 19 February 2027."); book a slot at a departmental or governance meeting now.

Evidence traps

• Teaching, podcasts, webinars and patient leaflets need formal feedback, and podcast or webinar links must still work when assessors look in March 2027. N.B Evidence of formal feedback is required for Teaching experience, Podcasts, Webinars and Patient Information Leaflets and any other evidence not detailed above. ... Links must be live for Assessors to access during March 2027 source
• If you paid a fee to present or show a poster, it scores as none/other, and a meeting that asked you to pay to present is unlikely to be treated as peer reviewed. In situations where you are solely presenting or showing your poster because you have paid a fee to do so you may only select the "none/other" option. ... if you have been asked to pay money to present something at a meeting, this meeting is unlikely to be peer reviewed. source
• No index page means zero for the whole portfolio, and assessors only look at the first achievement in each domain. This is mandatory and candidates who fail to include the index sheet will score 0 for their portfolio evidence ... Assessors will only assess and ask questions on the first achievement uploaded per domain, as they will assume that this is the evidence most likely to score the highest points for a candidate source
• One achievement, one domain: an audit you presented under QI cannot be claimed again as a presentation. A specific achievement can only be used in 1 domain. ... Any points claimed for oral or poster presentations in this section must be completely different projects to any QI or audit work used to claim points in any other section. source
• Supervisor letters without a GMC number, editable e-signatures, or any patient-identifiable data score zero. Where evidence asks for a supervisor’s GMC number to be provided, it is mandatory to do so – evidence submitted without this will not be accepted by the interview panel and will score 0 points source

Sources

• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgical Training Portfolio Guidance for Candidates (2027 CST CT1 and IST ST1 portfolio scoring guide), 2027; page last reviewed 27 October 2026, next review due 27 October 2028
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgery Training, Applying (2027 recruitment), 2027 recruitment; page last reviewed 21 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgery Training, Recruitment timelines (Round 1, 2027), 2027 Round 1; page last reviewed 21 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgery Training, Interviews (2027), 2027 recruitment; page last reviewed 21 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Overview of Core Surgery Training CT1/ST1 (2027), 2027 recruitment; page last reviewed 21 October 2026
• NHS England Medical Hub: Core Surgical Training CT1 2027 person specification, 2027 recruitment
• Core Surgical Training Portfolio - Index Page (DOCX download from the portfolio guidance page), file last-modified 27 September 2024
• Examples of Portfolio Evidence (DOCX download from the portfolio guidance page), file last-modified 1 October 2024
• NHS England Medical Hub: 2025 competition ratios (Round 1), 2025 Round 1 (from screen/competition-ratios.json, not re-fetched)

Letters you can still move before 19 February

Nobody looks at CST evidence until February, and achievements count up to the submission date: “All achievements / evidence must be completed by the submission date of Friday 19 February 2027.” Operative experience is the steadiest row to improve: each assisted or supervised case counts once it’s logged on eLogbook, so reaching 30 cases lifts a C to B and reaching 40 lifts a B to A, and the consultant can sign the consolidation report later, before the upload. If you’ve no surgical experience yet, a taster of at least 5 days moves that row from B to A, and a taster completed by 19 February 2027 counts. The guide also says a taster merely booked (not yet completed) scores 0, so complete it by 19 February and ask a department now. Anyone who contributed to a closed-loop audit but never presented it can gain in the presentation row by presenting a cycle at a departmental or governance meeting (C to B), or both cycles or the change (C to A). In Patients, Partnership and Communication, a selected oral at a national meeting reaches B and a regional oral D. Designing a face-to-face teaching programme with local educators and delivering four weekly sessions, the last on Thursday 11 February 2027, is the last comfortable route to A. A second audit cycle that shows change is unrealistic before 19 February unless the project is already well advanced.

Before you upload in February

Several CST rules bite at the upload rather than in the letter you choose: a missing index page scores 0 for the whole portfolio, assessors read only the first achievement in each domain, and a supervisor letter without a GMC number scores zero. An achievement can only be used in one domain, and an audit or QI project must have been presented in the area where the change was being made. Teaching, podcasts, webinars and patient leaflets all need formal feedback, and a podcast or webinar link must still work when assessors look in March 2027.

Worked example: one FY2’s index page, row by row

Take a hypothetical FY2 with 25 assisted cases on a signed eLogbook consolidation sheet, a 4-week surgical elective from medical school, a contribution to a closed-loop audit with one cycle presented at a departmental meeting, a first-author poster at a national meeting, and 6 sessions of medical student teaching in the last year with feedback reviewed by a consultant. Under the 2027 guide the index page reads:

• Operative experience: C, for 20 to 29 cases.
• Surgical experience: A, for an elective in a surgical specialty of at least 4 weeks.
• Patients, Partnership and Communication: C, for regular teaching of 4 or more sessions a year. That beats the first-author national poster, which is D, and only one achievement goes in this domain.
• Quality improvement project or audit: C, as a contributor to a project that demonstrated change.
• QI or audit presentation: B, for presenting one cycle at a meeting.

There’s no starting total to quote, because CST attaches no points to any letter. A teaching course would gain this doctor nothing, because the 2027 guide has no option for training in teaching. Logging 5 more assisted cases before 19 February would take operative experience from C to B. Designing a 4-session face-to-face programme with local educators and delivering all four would take Patients, Partnership and Communication from C to A. A personally delivered oral at a peer-reviewed national meeting convened by an accredited institution, with no fee paid to present, would take it from C to B. What any of those changes is worth on the day isn’t published: the letters guide the assessors, who then mark the portfolio station from 0 to 6 per element.

Grade yourself, row by row

The grade checker at the top of this page gives you a letter for each row of your index page, but no total, because no points exist for the letters and any total would have to be invented. These letters come from the 2027 guidance, which groups the portfolio into three domains aligned with Good Medical Practice.

• Operative experience: A for 40 or more cases, B for 30 to 39, C for 20 to 29, D for 11 to 19, and E for 10 or fewer. Count cases you assisted in or performed under supervision, and leave out any you only observed.
• Surgical experience: only two letters. A if you’ve done a taster of at least 5 days (they needn’t be consecutive) or a surgical elective of at least 4 weeks as a student, otherwise B.
• Patients, Partnership and Communication, your single best achievement: A for the top prize for a national or international oral, a first-author PubMed or Web of Science paper that isn’t a case report or letter, a face-to-face teaching programme you designed with local educators and delivered at least 4 sessions of, or a surgically themed podcast, webinar or patient leaflet with demonstrable impact; B for a selected national oral, a prize-winning first-author poster, a first-author case report, editorial letter or published book chapter, the same teaching programme delivered online, or a podcast, webinar or patient leaflet with demonstrable impact; C for regular teaching of 4 or more sessions a year; D for a first-author national poster, a selected regional oral or cited collaborative authorship; E for none.
• Quality improvement project or audit, judged on one project: A if you led every aspect of a surgically themed project that closed the loop, B if you led a closed-loop project in any specialty, C if you contributed to one, D for any involvement in an audit or QI project, and E for none.
• QI or audit presentation, open only if you scored A, B or C above: A for presenting both cycles or the change, B for presenting one cycle, and C if you didn’t present it.

Put down the letter your evidence will support, because the panel treats it as a starting point: “The score acts as a guide for assessors during the portfolio station … Assessors will review the evidence, then ask candidates some questions about their portfolio and then allocate a final score”.

If you’d like the five CST rows and the key dates on one printable page, leave your email below.

Does a teach the teacher course count for CST?

No, not for 2027. The 2027 guide has no option for training in teaching. Its teaching options are all teaching you deliver, in the Patients, Partnership and Communication domain: designing and organising a programme of 4 or more sessions with local educators and delivering at least 4 (A face-to-face, B online), and regular teaching of 4 or more sessions over the last year (C). A course you attend scores None/other. So in 2027 a teaching course on its own doesn’t score for CST. What does score is teaching you deliver, a presentation you were selected to give, and a quality improvement project. If you have the weeks to spare, a teaching programme you design and deliver yourself reaches A, the top letter in this domain. Erudical also needs doctors to teach its Teach the Teacher course, so if you would like to do that, get in touch. If you’re applying to other specialties too, our table of what teaching courses score in each specialty shows where a course like our live teach the teacher course does count.

Invited to interview? See how the stations are scored, and what makes you appointable, in our Core Surgical Training interview guide.

Common questions about the CST portfolio

How is the CST portfolio scored in 2027?

There’s no self-assessment on Oriel this year. If your MSRA result puts you among roughly the top 1,200, you upload an index page with a letter for each row, plus the evidence for each row, between 19 and 24 February 2027. The 2027 portfolio has three domains, aligned with three of the four domains of the GMC’s Good Medical Practice. The fourth, Trust and Professionalism, is assessed through the interview. Interviews run online from 1 to 10 March 2027, and the portfolio station combines a pre-prepared 3-minute presentation, 2 minutes of questions on it and two 5-minute portfolio questions. Assessors ask those questions only on Patients, Partnership and Communication and on Colleagues, Culture and Safety. Your final score is the MSRA (10%), the portfolio station (45%) and the management and clinical station (45%). No points value per letter has been published.

Do posters and oral presentations count for the CST portfolio?

Yes. Under the 2027 guide they sit in Patients, Partnership and Communication: a national or international oral you were selected to deliver is B, a first-author national poster is D, and a regional oral is also D. A top-prize national or international oral or a first-author PubMed or Web of Science paper reaches A. Oral poster presentations don’t count as orals, the meeting must involve peer review, and a presentation you paid a fee to give can only be claimed as none/other.

When do CST portfolio achievements have to be completed?

By Friday 19 February 2027: “All achievements / evidence must be completed by the submission date of Friday 19 February 2027.” The evidence portal is open from Friday 19 to Wednesday 24 February 2027. Applications themselves still close at 4pm on Thursday 19 November 2026. A case logged or a talk given in December still counts for this round.