NHS Interview Tips by Band: What the Panel Is Scoring

The six NHS values

In England, every NHS job asks you to show the values of the NHS Constitution, from porters to consultants:

• –Working together for patients: patients come first in everything we do.
• –Respect and dignity: treating everyone, patients and staff, as an individual.
• –Commitment to quality of care: getting safety, effectiveness and patient experience right every time.
• –Compassion: responding with humanity and kindness to pain, distress, anxiety or need.
• –Improving lives: improving health, wellbeing and people's experience of the NHS.
• –Everyone counts: making sure nobody is excluded, discriminated against or left behind.

Answer with STAR

Health Careers recommends the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Spend most of the answer on what you did and what changed because of it. Use your own examples and what you learned from them, not generic answers. If a question isn't clear, ask for it to be repeated or explained; it's better than answering the wrong question.

Expect a mix of question types: competency, strengths, technical, situational judgement, values and motivation.

What changes as you go up the bands

The national job profiles describe what each band does, and panels write their questions around them.

• –Band 2 and 3 support roles. Band 2 healthcare support work is personal care; Band 3 adds delegated clinical tasks such as observations and blood glucose monitoring. For a Band 3 post, have examples of clinical tasks you've done, how you recorded them, and when you escalated a concern.
• –Band 4. Assistant practitioners and nursing associates work with more independence under registered staff. Expect questions about your training, your scope and where it ends.
• –Band 5. For most registered professionals this is the first qualified post. Panels look for safe practice, prioritising a busy shift, escalation, and how you'll use your preceptorship.
• –Band 6. Nursing roles at Band 6 are specialist or team leader roles. Bring examples of leading a shift or a piece of work, supporting junior staff, and handling a difficult situation on your own judgement.
• –Band 7. The profiles have an advanced practice role and a team manager role. Expect questions on managing people (appraisals, sickness, conflict), service improvement with measurable results, and budgets or staffing.
• –Band 8a and above. Strategy, service change across teams, and evidence of results. Some posts add a presentation or a scenario exercise.

Ask about pay before you accept

• –Starting point. New starters normally go on the bottom of the band, but employers can start you higher for relevant experience, including outside the NHS or abroad. Ask, and get the agreed pay point in writing before you accept.
• –Previous NHS service. If you're moving from another NHS employer in the same band, your service counts towards your next pay step, so you should keep your pay point.
• –Promotion. Moving up a band puts you on the bottom of the new band. From the top of Band 7, the bottom of 8a is only £1,013 a year more, and 8a has no overtime pay: check what a move is really worth with the band comparison tool.
• –Shifts and London weighting. Ask about the rota and whether the post is in a High Cost Area Supplement zone; both change your take home. The take home calculator shows the difference.

Afterwards

Ask for feedback if you're not offered the job; employers will often give it, written or verbal. Note down the questions you were asked while you still remember them.

Online interviews

Check your equipment and connection beforehand and find somewhere without distractions.