How to Fill Out and Submit the CREST Form: Signatory and Oriel Upload

To fill out the CREST form, you download the current 2024 Certificate of Readiness to Enter Specialty Training from NHS England, complete your applicant details, have a qualifying consultant-level supervisor tick every competency and sign to confirm you have reached Foundation Programme standard, then scan everything into a single document and upload it to your Oriel application before you submit.¹ If any part of that is wrong or missing, the application stops there. There is no correction window.²

Do You Actually Need CREST

You need a CREST form if you do not hold a Foundation Programme Certificate of Completion (FPCC) awarded within the three and a half years before the advertised start date of the post you are applying to.³ Doctors who completed UK foundation training after February 2023 and before 5 August 2026 can upload the FPCC instead.⁴ A handful of other foundation-competence certificates are accepted in specific circumstances, so check the NHS England foundation competencies page before assuming CREST is your route.² For most international medical graduates and for UK doctors whose foundation training is older than that window, CREST is what you submit.

Choose a Signatory Who Actually Qualifies

This is where applications most often collapse, so settle it before you do anything else. The form can only be signed by a consultant or an accepted equivalent: general practitioners, clinical directors, medical superintendents, academic professors, locum consultants who hold a CCT or CESR and sit on the specialist register, and Specialty and Specialist (SAS) doctors serving as educational supervisors.¹ A registrar or senior house officer cannot sign, regardless of how closely they worked with you.

The signatory must have supervised you continuously for at least three months whole-time equivalent, and that supervision must fall entirely within the three and a half years before the advertised start date. Clinical attachments and observer posts do not count.³ You also cannot use someone with whom you have a close personal relationship.

Signatories Registered Outside the GMC

If your supervisor is registered with a medical regulator other than the General Medical Council, they must provide current evidence of that registration at the time of signing. If the document is not in English, include a certified translation. Historic GMC registration — where the signatory was once registered but no longer is — will not be accepted. Missing registration evidence causes automatic rejection.¹

Your Own GMC Status

Separately, you must be fully registered with the GMC when you submit your application, and the GMC must have issued you a licence to practise by the advertised start date.⁵

What Your Signatory Is Confirming

The form has three sections, each a checklist. Every box needs a tick. If even one is left blank, the form is incomplete.

An Accountable, Capable and Compassionate Doctor

Core clinical competencies. Your signatory confirms you can assess patients across acute, non-acute, and community settings; recognise and initiate urgent treatment when a patient deteriorates physically or mentally; formulate treatment plans with appropriate ethical consideration; communicate clearly with patients and carers; and contribute to safe ongoing care in and out of hours.

A Valuable Member of the Healthcare Workforce

How you function within a team. Working confidently in a multidisciplinary team and guiding it toward high standards, managing your own wellbeing, speaking up when colleagues do not act in line with healthcare values, contributing to quality improvement, and teaching and presenting effectively.

A Professional Responsible for Their Own Practice

Professional development and ethics: practising in line with statutory and ethical requirements, taking responsibility for portfolio development, reflective practice, and career planning.

Give Your Signatory Something to Sign Against

The form itself does not require attached evidence, but your signatory needs a basis for ticking each box. Before you sit down with them, gather clinical logbooks covering the supervision period, workplace-based assessments (mini-CEX, DOPS), any multisource feedback, and relevant sections of an e-portfolio if you have one. A supervisor working from documented evidence signs faster and with more confidence than one working from memory.

Filling In and Signing the Form

Download the Right Version

Use the 2024 CREST form from the NHS England Certificate of Readiness page. The form was updated in September 2024 to add an applicant checklist, and either the original 2024 version or the updated version is accepted for the 2026 recruitment rounds.² Any earlier version will not be accepted.

Complete the Applicant Section

Enter your full name, GMC number, and contact details. Check the GMC number against your registration record; a typo can trigger a verification failure.

Complete the Signatory Section

Fill in the supervisor’s name, position, GMC number (or other regulatory registration number), place of work, and contact details. Match everything to official records.

Signatory Ticks Every Box and Signs

Your supervisor works through all three sections, ticks each competency they can confirm, then signs and dates the form. An institutional stamp is optional; the signature is what matters.

If the Signature Is Digital

Digital signatures are accepted, but you must also include a confirmation email from the signatory’s work email address verifying that the signature is theirs. Scan that email and include it in the same document you upload.

Run the Applicant Checklist

The updated 2024 form includes a checklist for you to work through before submission. Do it methodically. After weeks of coordination it is easy to miss something obvious.

Uploading to Oriel

Combine the completed form, the signatory’s registration evidence if they are registered outside the GMC, and any digital-signature confirmation email into a single scanned document. Upload that one file to your Oriel application before you submit.¹ The same CREST is reviewed across all your CT1 and ST1 applications, so you do not need a separate copy for each specialty.

Before submitting, open the uploaded file and check every page. The signature should be legible, every checkbox visibly ticked, and any stamps or registration documents readable. A blurry scan that obscures the signatory’s details can sink an otherwise complete application.

What Happens After You Submit

The recruitment office runs an administrative review to confirm every required field is complete, the signatory meets the eligibility rules, and the supervision period falls within the allowed window. Pass, and your application moves to the next stage. Fail, and it stops. NHS England is explicit: if you were required to submit a CREST and did not provide a satisfactory one, you will not be offered another opportunity to upload it.²

Mistakes That Get Applications Rejected

Using a pre-2024 version of the form.
Choosing a signatory below consultant level or outside the accepted equivalents list.
Relying on clinical attachments or observer posts to meet the three-month supervision requirement. They do not count.
Forgetting current registration evidence when the signatory is registered outside the GMC. This causes automatic rejection.¹
Uploading the form and supporting documents as separate files instead of one.
Leaving any competency checkbox blank.
Starting late. Coordinating with a busy consultant, gathering registration evidence, and scanning a clean single document takes longer than most applicants expect.

1
NHS England. Certificate of Readiness to Enter Specialty Training (CREST) 2024
2
NHS England. Certificate of Readiness – Medical Specialty Recruitment
3
NHS England. Foundation Competencies – Medical Specialty Recruitment
4
IMT Recruitment. Foundation Competences
5
NHS England. Applying for Core Training – Medical Specialty Recruitment