Oriel Pharmacy Applications: Past Data & Success Rates

Advice & Insight From Pre-Registration Recruitment Exam Specialists

It’s vital for applicants to have an overall understanding of the success rate when applying through Oriel for Pharmacy Foundation Training Programs. Here, we will work through some of the most relevant data from the 2022 application cycle, covering an overview of how many applicants received offers, fill rates, differences in test scores between applicants groups, and the different types of programs and placements available.

Overview of Foundation Training Applications Data for Pharmacy

As an overview, there were 3476 training places available across all the different programs, which is many more programs than there were applicants – there were just 2763 applicants, of whom only 2383 would go on to attend the assessments. Therefore, by the end of the process 99% of successful applicants (2128) had received an offer, with 1911 of these offers being accepted. The fill rate for NHS programs was 99.8%, whilst for community pharmacy programs it was 38.7%. The overall fill rate was 55%. The maximum possible fill rate if all candidates had been given places would have been given places would have been 62%.

Programs and Availability for Pharmacy Foundation Training

There were 3476 training places across 2695 programs, which was a 9.6% decrease from the previous year. There were 380 programs within the NHS hospital sector, making up 26.7% of training places, with 43.9% of programs offered by large community pharmacy employers, 10.4% by medium pharmacy employers, 12.5% by small pharmacy employers and 19.2% by independent pharmacy contractors. There was a small increase in the number of programmes offered by hospital employers, compared with the previous year.

Multi-sector Placements

There were 218 collaborative organisations that registered split-placement training programmes on Oriel, including HEE funded multi-sector programmes such as a GP foundation pilot. Each program was split between at least two sectors, like Hospital, Community Pharmacy, GP Practice and ICBs. In total there were 465 programs that qualified as multi-sector, making up 706 training places. Split training programs were evenly spread across the regions, with the fewest programmes found in Thames Valley and the most available in Wales and London, where there were approximately 70 each.

Optimise Your Pre-Reg Oriel Performance

Learn the best Pre-Reg Oriel strategies and practice with reflective questions & worked solutions.

Oriel Question Bank

Oriel Practice Questions

Outcomes for Applicants in Oriel Foundation Training Pharmacy

The number of applications, at 2763, was higher than the previous year, at 2524, and the highest ever. 5.5% of applicants were either currently enrolled on an accredited Overseas Pharmacists’ Assessment Programme or were OSPAP graduates.

SJT and Numeracy Test Data for Oriel Pharmacy

There were differences across groups in both assessments. For both the SJT and the Numeracy Test, younger applicants scored better than older applicants. Looking at the SJT, women scored higher than men, whilst for the Numeracy test, men scored higher than women (although the differences were small). With regard to both the SJT and Numeracy Test, differences in performance were seen based on applicant race – for the SJT, White applicants performed better than all other groups. In the Numeracy Test, Chinese and White applicants performed better than Asian, Black, Mixed and Other applicants.

Program Offers for Pharmacy Foundation Training

At the conclusion of the process, 98.8% of successful applicants had received a programme offer, of which 156 were declined, 42 expired, and 19 were accepted and then withdrawn. Overall, 90% of final offers were accepted. 0.8% of successful applicants were left without an offer at the conclusion of the process, a decrease of 14 compared to the previous year. These applicants were either those who required a Tier 2 work visa and did not achieve a high enough ranking to gain an offer from a program that could provide Tier 2 sponsorship, or those who preferenced very few programs and did not achieve a high enough ranking to gain an offer for those programs. Regarding fill rates, as stated above, 99.8% of NHS training places were filled, far more than the 38.7% of community pharmacy placements.

This should go some way to illustrating the difference in competitiveness between NHS placements and Community placements, but equally provide some reassurance to applicants, as it is evident that the overwhelming majority will receive an offer that they are happy to accept.