Dental Core Training

Associate Dental Dean for Dental Core Training: Caroline Harvey

Dental Core Training Administrator: Ben Hewett

National Dental Core Training Recruitment

Recruitment to Dental Core Training (DCT) posts in 2025 will be through a national selection process led by NHS England working across the South West Region.
Applicants can apply to one of three DCT levels: DCT1, DCT2 or DCT3. Each level has its own Person Specification.

2 Year DCT posts:

In 2024 NHS England South West developed a number of new DCT posts combining DCT1 and DCT2 into a 2 year programme. This was in response to feedback from our trainees who said they would like more stability and certainty around where they will be for longer than 12 months at a time. This would also reduce the administrative burden of applying each year for their next post, thus being able to focus on training and career progression.

We again have a number of posts starting at DCT1 in September 2025 for 24 months that run through into the linked DCT2 posts in 2026. These posts are based in Truro, Torbay and Bristol.
We have been mindful to maintain a mix of posts to allow for those who only want 12 months in DCT or who change their mind on wishing to continue into DCT2 after completing a single year at DCT1. This flexibility of posts and mixture of specialties involved we think will be an attractive choice when it comes to preferencing NHS England South West DCT posts through National Recruitment.

Commitment to 2 years

We ask that if you preference a 2 year post that you are doing so in the knowledge that you are committing to this post for 2 years. Dropping out of a 2 year post has implications for many others in not being able to have the opportunity of a training place and also for the host trust being left with a gap to be filled. Please take this into account when you make this choice. We do understand that circumstance change. If your circumstances do change, we would ask that you inform us as soon as possible if you do not wish to continue in the post for the second year of training. In this way, the unfilled post can be entered into National Recruitment.

Applications and offers will be made through Oriel, the national recruitment system. This system enables the national coordination of the application and offer processes and will allow applicants to accept only one post across the UK. The application window can be seen on the national recruitment timeline below. Applications must apply via Oriel (www.oriel.nhs.uk).

Geographic Areas - Please click here to see a list of the Geographic Areas and info on them from the southwest

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