The quick answer
Your scope of work is essentially what you’ve been up to professionally since your last appraisal. That might be a full-time NHS job, a handful of locum shifts, a clinical attachment, private practice, independent prescribing, teaching, or several different roles at once.
The important thing is to give your appraiser an accurate picture of where you worked, what you did and the level of responsibility you had. It doesn’t need to be an essay—but “locum doctor” on its own doesn’t tell us very much.
Why is this section so important?
Scope of work is often one of the first sections of an appraisal. I think of it as the foundation for everything that follows: it helps your appraiser understand whether your CPD, quality improvement, feedback, reflection and personal development plan relate to what you actually do.
It also acts as an important declaration of your medical practice. If you have an occasional private role or work at several different hospitals, it is easy to overlook one. The aim isn’t to make the form longer for the sake of it—it’s to make sure the picture is complete.
What the GMC actually expects
The GMC says you must declare the places you have worked and roles you have carried out as a doctor since your last appraisal, covering clinical and non-clinical roles, and NHS, independent, voluntary and private work. Your appraisal information should reflect your whole practice, while the supporting evidence itself should be proportionate and useful for reflection.
What should I write for each role?
| Include | What that means in practice |
|---|---|
| Role / grade | e.g. Locum SHO, GP, clinical observer, teaching fellow, medical director |
| Organisation and location | Name the actual Trust, practice, hospital or business where you worked; include the agency separately if relevant |
| Dates | Start and end dates, or “ongoing”; cover the period since your last appraisal |
| Specialty / setting | e.g. acute medical unit, adult psychiatry, private dermatology clinic |
| Your responsibilities | A few sentences on patient group, tasks, autonomy, supervision and decision-making |
| Pattern of work | Full-time, part-time, one day weekly or ad hoc shifts—approximate frequency is fine |
You do not need to list every individual locum shift or rewrite your entire CV. You can group similar work sensibly, provided the different organisations, workplaces and relevant roles are identifiable.
A simple way to build your entry
- 1. WHERE?
Trust / practice / private provider (+ agency if applicable)
- 2. WHAT?
Role, specialty and key responsibilities
- 3. WHEN?
Dates within the appraisal year
- 4. HOW?
Full-time, occasional shifts, observed or supervised
Those four answers will usually give an appraiser enough information to understand the scope and nature of the role.
Worked examples: vague versus helpful
These examples show how a few extra details can make your role, setting and responsibilities clearer.
Example 1 — a medicine SHO
“Medicine SHO.”
“SHO-level doctor on a general medical ward, undertaking clerking of admissions, daily patient reviews, requesting and interpreting investigations, discharge planning and escalation of deteriorating patients to the senior team.”
Example 2 — an agency locum
“Locum doctor, 2026. Agency: Med Echo.”
“Locum SHO in gastroenterology and cardiology at Salisbury NHS Trust, through Med Echo agency. Ad hoc shifts averaging 2–3 per week between January and June 2026. Duties included ward reviews, clerking, prescribing within competence and escalation to senior colleagues.”
If you also worked in a private hospital or another Trust, include that setting too. The agency name alone doesn’t tell your appraiser where you actually practised.
Example 3 — an IMG completing an observership
Clinical observer — adult mental health
“Two-week clinical attachment at Example NHS Foundation Trust in September 2025. Observed psychiatric assessments, ward rounds, multidisciplinary meetings and clinical decision-making. Observational role only; no independent clinical responsibilities or prescribing.”
If you subsequently held a supervised Trust-grade post, record that as a separate role and describe your real clinical duties.
What about non-clinical work?
This is where people can easily under-report their scope. Seeing patients is not the only way you can be working as a doctor. Relevant roles might include medical education, research, public health, leadership, management, pharmaceuticals, regulation or medico-legal practice.
| Type of work | Should it appear? |
|---|---|
| NHS clinical job / locum shifts | Yes—include the workplaces and nature of the clinical role. |
| Private practice, aesthetics or independent prescribing | Yes—describe the medical service, setting, responsibilities and frequency. |
| Teaching, research, leadership or medico-legal work as a doctor | Yes, where it forms part of your professional practice as a doctor. |
| HCA, support worker or endoscopy assistant | Not automatically a role carried out as a doctor. You can include it separately as helpful professional context, clearly labelled. |
| Clinical attachment / observership | Include it where relevant to explaining your year and learning, but identify it explicitly as observational rather than independent doctor practice. |
For example, if you are an IMG who spent two weeks observing in hospital and the rest of the year employed as a healthcare assistant, I would encourage you to explain both. They are different roles, but the second may still provide valuable context for your development and your PDP.
What if I have barely worked clinically this year?
This is particularly relevant for IMGs waiting for their first NHS role, doctors on a career break and those who have had difficulty finding shifts. It can feel as though there is nothing to write down, but that is not a reason to leave the section blank.
State the circumstances accurately. Explain any clinical exposure, observerships, medical roles and periods out of work. Relevant CPD, reflective learning and plans to return to clinical practice can contribute to the broader appraisal discussion—but CPD on its own is not a job or scope-of-work entry.
Six mistakes I would avoid
- Leaving the section blank because you did little clinical work.
- Writing only “locum doctor” without telling us your specialty, location or responsibilities.
- Naming the agency but omitting the hospitals or practices where you worked.
- Forgetting private, educational, leadership or medico-legal work as a doctor.
- Listing every job since graduation instead of focusing on the period since your last appraisal.
- Describing HCA or observer work as if it involved a doctor’s clinical responsibilities.
Before you submit: a quick check
- Have I captured every relevant role since my previous appraisal?
- Have I named the actual organisations and settings—not only agencies?
- Are dates, working pattern and responsibilities reasonably clear?
- Have I included relevant medical work outside my main NHS position?
- Have I distinguished observerships and non-doctor employment accurately?
- Does my supporting information broadly reflect the roles I have declared?
My advice as an appraiser
I rarely see enormous errors in scope-of-work sections. What I see much more often is simply a lack of detail. A few extra sentences make a huge difference, and if you have worked for lots of organisations, attaching an up-to-date CV can help.
My rule of thumb is this: tell your appraiser what you were actually doing, where you did it and in what capacity. If you are unsure whether a role is relevant, include enough context to discuss it rather than quietly omitting it.
Sources and review
- Last reviewed
- 26 October 2026