Medical and Dental

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust is a large teaching hospital that works in partnership with the University of Plymouth, Peninsula Medical School. The Trust has a limited number of placements for medical students (non-Peninsula Medical School) from the United Kingdom. These placements are to be during the period that the Plymouth Medical Students are not in placements at Derriford Hospital (during July/August), for a maximum period of 4 weeks and available to Medical Students who have completed 3 years of Medical School and supported by their Medical school to do so.

If you are interested in doing this you will need to contact the department you are interested in working with first to gain their approval. You can find departmental details on Our Services page or contact switchboard on 01752 202082. 

Once you have this in place you will need to inform the Learning and Organisational Development team on the following email address: plh-tr.workexperience@nhs.net who will advise you on the next steps.

The current window of opportunity to process agreed placements for 2025 is open until the 31st January 2025. Therefore, please ensure you contact the Learning and Organisational Development Team with the agreement so the required application process and paperwork can be processed.

Please note the following:

• The administrative fee for the elective placements is £75 per week. This will need to be paid before the start of the elective placement. Please note that there is a £100 non-refundable deposit (or £75 if you are only in for a 1-week placement) which must be paid upon acceptance of your elective placement offer, details will be sent to you by email.

• Elective students are required to make their own living arrangements for the duration of their placement. If you need any guidance with regards to accommodation, please get in touch.

Please note: The current guidance from UKVI stipulates that elective placements have to be arranged via a UK higher education institution and Derriford is an NHS Trust not a higher education institution, therefore at this time we can only accept UK nationals into these Medical Elective Placements.

We are a teaching hospital and the main site for teaching students from Plymouth University faculty of health and Peninsula Medical School. We seek to appoint clinicians with a commitment to undergraduate and postgraduate education. 

All our senior clinicians at UHP are expected to be advocated for all of our students, including medical, nursing, radiography and physician associates, and engage teaching as part of their working lives. In most departments additional medical school sessions will be included in job plans.  

Additional funded opportunities to be involved with teaching are available to all senior clinicians which may include becoming an academic or pastoral tutor as well as senior roles in the medical school.

International Medical Graduates (IMGs) are an invaluable part of our Trusts workforce and greatly contribute to the diverse teams we have within the hospital. We recognise that transitioning into a different healthcare system presents unique educational and pastoral challenges.   

As the Trust we are continuously improving our support to IMGs from our initial point of contact, to when you join us, and throughout your career. From the point of job offer, the Medical Workforce and Education team will send new colleagues a series of welcome emails, highlighting the support available prior to, and upon arrival in Plymouth.  

Once you’ve started with us you will benefit from an enhanced induction and access to a range of introductory training sessions to help you familiarise yourself to working within the UK, Plymouth and our Trust. 

We currently host 164 Foundation Programme placements at UHP and continuously plan for expansion of our programme, offering innovative training opportunities such as Diving Disease and Research and Public Health. We would be delighted to welcome you to our team as you embark upon your postgraduate training. 

UHP are the Lead Employer for the Southwest Imaging Training Academy, the only purpose-built facility of its type in the world. This bespoke facility has been created with the specific purpose of Radiology training and it provides a truly outstanding environment within which to learn. It has been designed from scratch, blending established traditional small group teaching methods with state-of-the-art electronic and simulator technology. 

Recruitment to our postgraduate doctor in training posts takes place though NHS England Workforce, Training & Education Department. Find out more about Medical Speciality Recruitment. 

UHP`s Research strategy embeds high quality clinical trials and other well-designed research at the centre of core clinical care to make research everybody`s business. Clinicians coming to work at UHP can expect wholehearted support for their research ambitions, endorsed by the Trust Executive and Board and in line the GMC`s expectations for all doctors to be delivering research as part of routine care: Read Normalising research – Promoting research for all doctors

UHP supports the delivery of clinical trials and other clinical research across the breadth of our specialties and sites. We open >120 new studies a year, adding to an active portfolio of approximately 500 commercial and non- commercial clinical trials and other health research studies, across which we recruit approximately 4500 patients annually.  

We were identified as the highest recruiting “Large Acute Trust” in the UK to NIHR commercial portfolio trials in the NIHR league tables 2021/22.  

Our academic partner, University of Plymouth`s Faculty of Health provides a thriving research-positive environment, enabling integrative and collaborative work across six schools (Biomedical Science, Dentistry, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing & Midwifery and Psychology). The university`s Plymouth Institute of Health and Care Research (PIHR) is inclusive of all health research and can therefore enable personalised support to clinical researchers to enable their success.  

PIHR has a research income of approximately £10 million per annum with scientists and clinical-academics acting as chief investigators (CIs) or collaborators on all NIHR programmes, clinical fellowships, and a large number of UKRI and charity-funded projects.  

The University of Plymouth`s Derriford Research Facility is a state-of-the-art laboratory building, opened in 2017 and co-located on the hospital campus, providing modern and readily accessible basic science and translational capability and capacity. The constituent schools of the Faculty of Health hold Athena Swan Silver and Bronze awards, with a strong and unequivocal commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion and to maximising opportunities for female scientists and Early Career Researchers.  

UHPs clinical academic strategy, developed in partnership with UoP, focuses support on research active clinicians to grow the academic footprint of our local health ecosystem, in line with the Trust`s clinical identity as   

• the local acute hospital for our coastal community  

• an anchor institution (with Livewell SW) in the Integrated Care Partnership and 

• the Tertiary Centre & Major Trauma Centre for the whole Southwest Peninsula region.