What you hand in for the Ophthalmology ST1 portfolio

Three things go in while the portal is open

Everything goes in while the evidence portal is open, from 18 January to 2 February 2027. Miss any of the three and you will not progress.

Your score cannot be changed once it is submitted, so check it before you send it. How many points each domain can score, and how, is on the self-assessment page.

• Your scores on an MS Teams form: your score for each domain, with no comments. The full instructions are issued shortly before the portal opens.
• The self-assessment proforma: the same scores, each with a brief description of the evidence behind it, uploaded as the first document in your evidence folder.
• Your evidence folder: the documents that prove each score, in the sections below.

Source: Self-assessment and supporting evidence (NHS England)

The 10 sections of the evidence folder

The folder has 10 sections: the self-assessment proforma, which is not a domain, the List of Previous Posts, and the 8 scoring domains that match the rows of the self-assessment form. Follow the guidance's list of contents closely, because it warns that "marks may be deducted for including unnecessary information".

Overall Portfolio Layout and Quality is the only scoring domain with no section of its own. It is worth 3 points, judged on how the whole folder is laid out and organised.

• Self-assessment proforma: your score for each domain with a brief description of the evidence behind it. It is the first document in the folder.
• List of Previous Posts: every post you have held, most recent first. It scores 0.
• Qualifications: certificates or a letter of proof. Say explicitly whether each degree beyond your primary degree is intercalated, and add a supervisor's letter for an MD, MPhil, PhD or DPhil.
• Prizes and Awards: proof of each prize. A degree prize needs evidence that explicitly shows fewer than 15% of the year achieved it.
• Multi-Source Feedback: the feedback report, with the period it covered, signed by your educational supervisor or department lead and stamped, unless it is a standard TAB form printed from your ePortfolio.
• Quality Improvement and Audit: your best project, as slides or a document showing its standards, methods, outcomes and recommendations, with a covering letter from the supervising consultant confirming your role.
• Presentations: a list saying whether each was oral or a poster, the abstracts or posters themselves, and proof from an abstract book or a supervisor's signed letter.
• Publications: the publications proforma, each entry followed by the first page of the paper, with evidence of final acceptance for a paper in press.
• Education and Teaching: a chapter index, attendance certificate or supervisor's signed letter for each item, and evidence of impact for e-learning tools and e-books.
• Specialty Links and Commitment: certificates and letters for each item, your reflection on any elective, and dated, supervisor-signed evidence of clinic and theatre sessions.

Source: Self-assessment and supporting evidence (NHS England)

Include the List of Previous Posts

It scores 0, but the guidance asks for it: "Please include a list of all your previous posts (your most recent post first). If you are not currently working within a clinical post please specify." It is there "to give context to your achievements".

So include it, most recent post first, and say so if you are not currently in a clinical post.

Source: Self-assessment and supporting evidence (NHS England)

Evidence, and what does not count as it

No points without third-party proof. In the guidance's words, "if there is any doubt, points will not be scored unless third party or objective supportive evidence is presented." A claim you cannot prove with a document somebody else wrote scores nothing, however true it is.

A peer-reviewed paper must be PubMed-cited, in a journal with a current Clarivate Journal Impact Factor, with the first page attached, and evidence of final acceptance as well if it is in press. Where an item depends on a length of time, such as a simulation course of four hours or an elective of two weeks, the proof has to show it, and clinic and theatre sessions need their dates and a supervisor's signature.

Each piece of evidence goes in one domain. No document in the folder may contain patient-identifiable information: that is a professional rule rather than a scoring one, and it applies to every page you upload.

• An achievement not complete when you upload, such as a qualification not yet awarded or a course not yet taken, does not count unless its domain says otherwise. A presentation accepted but not yet given scores, and so does a paper in press with evidence of final acceptance.
• In Quality Improvement and Audit, being listed first on a project's documents does not prove you led it. Your supervisor's letter has to say so.
• A supervisor's letter alone does not earn 4 or 5 points in Quality Improvement and Audit. The data showing the improvement has to be in the folder too.

Source: Self-assessment and supporting evidence (NHS England)

When to start

Most of the folder is history by the time the portal opens. Qualifications, prizes, publications and most of Specialty Links describe work done months or years before, so the useful time to score yourself is early, while a gap can still be closed.

The window runs until the portal closes. The guidance says "the deadline to submit the self-score will be the document upload deadline", and the portal is open "between the 18 January and 2 February 2027". So work finished before you upload, by 2 February 2027 at the latest, still counts, and so does a presentation accepted by then: "Accepted presentations, but not yet presented, will be awarded points."

For the 2028 round, candidates self-score in Oriel at the time of application, and "only competencies achieved by the application closing date, in November 2027, can be included in the self-assessment." A candidate applying in 2028 has until November 2027.

Source: Selection process (NHS England)

Where the forms are

The self-assessment proforma, the publications proforma and the multi-source feedback forms are linked from NHS England's Self-assessment and supporting evidence page, below.

Source: Self-assessment and supporting evidence (NHS England)