Performance of paediatric Senior House Officers following changes in recruitment

Recruitment to Paediatric Senior House Officer (SHO) posts has traditionally been undertaken by each individual hospital trust.

This study looks at whether shortlisting and interview scores from a Central Paediatric SHO recruitment process are a reliable predicator of performance.

A questionnaire was completed by educational supervisors including 11 Likert questions with a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) 3 months into the SHOs posts.

There was a 61% (54/88) response rate. Overall performance of trainees was good with mean scores for the Likert questions ranging from 4.4 to 4.91. There was a highly significant correlation between the interview scores and educational supervisors assessment of communication skills at 3 months (p = 0.007) but not with shortlisting scores. Personal and clinical skills and career planning showed a weakly positive correlation with both the shortlisting and interview scores.

These results suggest suitable candidates are being selected but longer term follow up is needed to monitor the progress of these trainees through to a certificate of completion of training in Paediatrics.