• Pre-Interview visits – creating personal presence & deriving benefit
• Understanding your consultant interview panel
• Building rapport with interviewers
• Effective communication skills within interviews
• Advanced interview techniques
• Psychological techniques for increased rapport, impact & clarity
• Understanding the reasoning behind the question
• Answering questions within the context of who’s asking – understanding the interviewer
• Recognising the effects of your internal wiring on your approach to answering questions
• Effectively structuring your answers
• Talking about yourself & showing the real you – do & don’t guidance
• The answers you must have – knowing what to research
• Handling difficult or unexpected questions
• Dealing with ethical questions
• Dealing with political questions
• Developing business or commercial healthcare knowledge
• Effective presentation skills
• Demonstrating initiative, personality, leadership and political awareness
• Understanding your body language
• Question practice with a 1:6 instructor-participant ratio

• The essence of Insights for your specialty
• What are the implications
• Sources of service risk & opportunity
• Key challenges arising out of the current change agenda
• What’s hot in your speciality
• Specialty specific initiatives
• Documents & frameworks you should know about
• Likely specialty-specific areas of interview focus
• Understanding the psychology of your specialty
• Key tips & strategies to optimise your interview

The Evolving System

• A sensible model of the current NHS
• Understanding current and evolving NHS structure and control
• Appreciating a system in flux – the current is not yet the vision
• NHS organisations & bodies – who does what for whom?
• Understanding Lord Darzi’s vision -healthcare delivery models
• Increasing use of and reliance on the community
• What does this mean for GPs and other community-based groups?
• What does this mean for secondary, tertiary care organisations?
• Polyclinics (sorry, Health Centres) – what, where, how & implications?
• Why the radical reform?
• The ‘do nothing’ approach – short, medium & longer term implications
• The strategic implications for services

Understanding Service Funding

• Understanding how services are funded in the evolving system
• Payment by results (PbR) and tariffs
• Income & costs – viability, sustainability & competitiveness
• Understanding CIP and its true longer term place in cost management
• Market forces and their impact on service funding
• Evolving roles and how this contributes financially
• Strategic considerations of financial evolution

Commissioning, Change & Competition

• The changing role of the PCT – what this means for you
• The principles in World Class Commissioning - insight & implications
• The relationship between commissioning and the clinical coalface
• Practice-based commissioning (PBC) – its role in healthcare reform
• Practice-based commissioning (PBC) – opportunities, threats & your role
• How are services & specialties targeted for reform?
• Competing provider types - NHS & Foundation Trusts
• Competing provider types - commercial organisations & willing providers
• Borderless thinking – the removal of healthcare boundaries
• What does it take to be competitive?
• Critical success factors for service competitiveness

Performance, Quality & Experience

• Performance, quality & experience in the context of the evolving system
• The performance imperative of modern healthcare
• The implications of poor performance in the modern era
• How will performance, quality & experience be assessed and assured
• Quality risk for provider services
• Patient experience as a quality measure
• The principles of the patient as conduit - the choice agenda
• The link between experience & service funding

The Future

• How will training evolve in the future?
• The implications of a two-tier system
• What changes could we expect under the Conservatives?
• Impact of economic meltdown on NHS funding models
• Broad scanning – ensuring you are ahead of the agenda
• The 6 critical success factors of service success
• Ensuring that services excel across all 6 critical success factors
• Future perspectives and likely further evolution