Redesigning the Graduate Assessment Process For The NHS

Stephan Lucks, Pearn Kandola

Working with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, Stephan Lucks and his colleagues at Pearn Kandola radically redesigned the Graduate Assessment Process for the NHS across England and Wales. There was a need to modernise the process, increase validity, improve the diversity of the graduate pool, and improve overall efficiency. The redesign made innovative use of on-line screening; involving verbal and numerical testing, a situational judgement test and a bespoke motivational test validated against the current graduate pool in the NHS. This approach removed the need to sift some 6,000 paper applications by managers.

The interview and assessment centre stages were redesigned using best practice principles, such as introducing behaviourally anchored rating scales, updating the method of integrating candidate scores, and ensuring rigorous assessor skills training. This approach has resulted in increased objectivity and the assessment centre now more accurately predicts success, whilst at the same time eliminating bias against any minority group.