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The procedures and skills question: what to write on an NHS application

By the Health Job Scout team · 5 min read · Fact-checked 22 October 2026

Many NHS applications ask about your procedures and skills. It might be a free-text box or a list to tick, and the wording changes from one employer to the next. The question looks routine, but it is one of the places where a reader quickly learns how careful you are. Overclaim here, and everything else on the form is read with suspicion.

What the question is really asking

Whatever the wording, the reader wants three things: which procedures you have done, how independently you did them, and whether you will be safe on your first week. The aim isn't to trip you up. The reader is working out how much supervision you will need.

Say which level you are at

This is our suggestion, not an official scale, but it works because it matches how people actually learn procedures:

• Observed. You watched someone else do it.
• Done under supervision. You did it with a senior doctor present or checking.
• Done independently. You did it on your own, without needing someone to check each step.

The GMC's Good medical practice (2024) expects doctors to recognise and work within the limits of their competence and to practise only under the level of supervision that suits their role, knowledge, skills and training, and the task. A clear statement of your level is the application version of that.

What to list

List what you have actually done, not what the advert mentions. Common examples are cannulation, venepuncture, blood gases, urinary catheterisation and nasogastric tubes, but you should write your own list. If a procedure was done by someone else where you trained, say you haven't done it, rather than hinting that you have.

For each item, a short line is enough:

Arterial blood gas sampling: performed independently during my internship in medicine, roughly weekly over eight months.

Notice what that line does. It names the procedure, states the level, and gives a time frame. It doesn't use an exact count unless you have a record that supports it.

Numbers and evidence

Only give a number if you can back it up. "Approximately 30" is honest if you kept a rough record, and "over 100" is a claim you may be asked to talk through. If you don't have a logbook, say "regularly" or "on most shifts" and describe the setting. Start a log now, even if it is a simple table: date, procedure, level, who supervised. It will make this answer, and your next application, much easier.

If you haven't done a procedure the advert asks for

Say so. Then add the nearest thing you have done, or what you plan to do about it, for example a course or a supervised session at the start of the post. This reads as someone who knows their limits, which is what the GMC standard asks for. It also helps you pick the right jobs. If a post lists several procedures you've never done, the post may not suit you yet.

What to avoid

• Listing a procedure you only watched as something you "can perform".
• Using NHS grade names to describe your level, such as "FY2 level", unless that is genuinely what you did.
• Copying a long list from a person specification and ticking everything.
• Giving exact numbers you can't support.

The honesty point is covered in more detail in our guide to why honesty matters on NHS job applications.

Before you submit

Read your answer as a stranger would. Would a consultant who has never met you know what you can do alone, what you can do with help, and what you haven't done? If yes, the answer is working. Our pre-submission checklist covers the rest of the form.

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