Oriel FAQs – Dental
The following FAQs have been developed to provide some assurance and greater understanding of
the Oriel project to Dental stakeholders.
1) What is Oriel?
Oriel is the name of the new and improved UK-wide specialty recruitment portal that is being
developed for 2013 and 2014. It has been piloted across 21 ST3 specialties (3000 applications) in
February 2014. With the introduction of Oriel, as an applicant you will register only once, you will
be able to search for all vacancies and information on lead recruiting organisations, you will be able
to apply, manage and book interviews and assessment centres, all within the one location. We aim
to provide a straight-forward, user friendly system to support you with your application process.
Oriel will be released in a staged approach to ensure that it is developed robustly and to ensure,
ultimately, that it works according to our needs. The system is being provided by Deloitte (as prime
contractor) working in partnership with Hicom Technologies Ltd.
You can see the current live system at: https://www.oriel.nhs.uk/Web/
2) What are the benefits of Dental recruitment using the Oriel system?
Currently dental recruitment is delivered through multiple recruitment systems (e.g. GTI, Intrepid
Pathway), as well as some paper based applications processes. Using Oriel would ensure a greater
consistency of approach across all dental recruitment, regardless of which recruitment office takes
the lead. As all recruitment officers (medical and dental) in a LETB/Deanery will be using the same
recruitment system, the risk in delivering recruitment will be decreased as there will be more people
with system knowledge and a greater ability to cross cover, where the need arises.
With multiple recruitment systems, application forms will be developed in different ways and will
appear differently to applicants. Currently, if an applicant applies to multiple dental specialties,
delivered through different recruitment systems, they are required to register with multiple
recruitment systems.
Oriel has a number of benefits for applicants;
1. Applicants will only need to register with one recruitment system, avoiding the need to have
multiple logins and multiple passwords. This registration will be valid year on year, for any
future applications made through the system (e.g. throughout a trainee dental career path).
There is no need to re-register.
2. Applicant experience will be the same regardless of which dental specialty they are applying
to
3. A record of all applications made and offers received will be stored in one central place
Oriel - Dental Frequently Asked Questions – May 2014
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3) Will dental recruitment be able to use the new Oriel recruitment system?
Yes. We are working with Dental Foundation and Dental Specialty stakeholders to plan when they
will use the Oriel recruitment system. The aim is that all recruitment to dental training posts, at all
levels, will be managed through Oriel from 1 September 2014.
4) Dental Foundation recruitment normally commences at the end of August.
Does this mean that Dental will be the first group to use Oriel?
Oriel has been piloted with 21 medical specialties and had over 3000 applications. The pilot to date
has been successful, with all 3000 applications being processed correctly through the system. Most
pilot specialties have progressed through the offers stage, meaning that they have successfully
completed a full end-to-end recruitment process using Oriel.
We have requested that the Dental Foundation opening date for applications (usually 26th August) is
pushed back by four working days until 1st September 2014. We have assurance that all other
deadlines in the recruitment (e.g. long-listing, interviews and offers) will be kept to the normal
timetable.
The Oriel system is also based on the same system (Hicom Pathway) that is used by the majority of
LETBs to manage their local dental recruitment. This system has been used for a number of years
across many recruitment organisations (e.g. LETBs). Finally a number of other medical specialties, in
addition to Dental Foundation, will also be advertised through Oriel on 1 September 2014.
5) How can we be assured that the Oriel system fits the dental recruitment
process?
The IT suppliers (Hicom) have been meeting with all recruitment leads for specialties that do not
currently use the Hicom system (for example for DFT, this is London Recruitment). The purpose of
these meetings have been to identify current recruitment processes and how these map to Oriel.
Functional gaps have been identified and where required, workarounds or requests for change have
been identified.
In addition, the Oriel system will undergo extensive further testing. This include three phases of
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) in June and July. During this testing period, recruitment leads will
test the system to ensure that individual specialty recruitment processes can be successfully
delivered through Oriel. London Recruitment has already identified resources to test the Dental
Foundation recruitment process during UAT, and will in fact be taking through 1400 test data
applications through the system to ensure the normal business processes can be delivered.
The application form for 2015 recruitment has been designed with questions specific to dental
foundation, as advised by London Recruitment.
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6) Can dental trainees get involved with the process?
Dental trainees can get involved with User Acceptance Testing. We are always keen to have trainees
involved in completing and submitting application forms during testing. Trainee feedback on the
system in terms of ease of use, application form content and flow is invaluable to the project team.
Any dental trainees wanting to be involved can contact [email protected]
7) What is happening to ensure that Dental Recruitment stakeholders are
aware of the change and engaged in the process?
We are working with all LETBs and devolved nations to support them through a process of local
business readiness (e.g. local training, testing, business process review, communications etc). The
central HEE Oriel project team have identified Oriel Champions in each of the LETBs and devolved
nation deaneries. Fortnightly telephone conferences will take place with the Oriel Champions to
discuss their progress towards preparing for the September release of Oriel. They have been
provided with a list of tasks that they need to complete and report back on. One of the tasks is to
engage with local dental recruitment colleagues and ensure that they know the requirements. A
thorough training needs analysis has also taken place where we asked for individual training needs
across all recruitment officers, including dental, to be identified. The Oriel champions will also be
used as a conduit to help deliver project information, central communications to local recruitment
colleagues and to help feed back comments and issues back to the central Oriel project team. A
detailed business readiness checklist for each organisation is also in place.
To support this process monthly assurance reports will be sent to Postgraduate Deans (Medical and
Dental), Directors of Education and Quality. Assurance reports will include a copy of the up to date
detailed business readiness checklist submitted by the Oriel Champions and a summary to show how
the individual organisation benchmarks with all others in each of the nine main areas of business
readiness (e.g. local training, testing, communications etc).
8) What happens if we do not feel ready for go live?
The expectation is that all medical and dental training posts, at all levels, will be recruited through
Oriel from September 2014. The Oriel Implementation Team will be responsible for making the
recommendation for a Go/No Go decision to the Recruitment Sub Group in mid August. This is in
keeping with the agreed Oriel and MDRS governance. This decision will not be taken lightly and a
vast amount of evidence will be considered; outcomes of business readiness assurance (MayAugust), feedback from User Acceptance Testing (June-July), feedback from the pilot phase. If you
have any major concerns that would prevent dental from going live with Oriel, it is essential that
these are clearly documented and fed into the appropriate groups, as early as possible. The HEE
Oriel project team will work with individuals who have concerns to ensure that ways are found to
alleviate any issues. The Oriel project team have extensive business continuity plans should the
decision be made not to go live. For Dental, this would mean a continuing to use the existing
recruitment systems.
Oriel - Dental Frequently Asked Questions – May 2014
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