Foundation Doctor's 2023 Guide to East Anglia

Updated for 2023 Applicants

East Anglia foundation school is apart of Health Education East of England, and covers Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire.

There are a mixture of specialist centres and busy DGHs. Addenbrooke’s Hospital is a major trauma centre, Liver transplant centre, neurosurgical centre and has the largest neurological intensive care unit of its kind in Europe. Royal Papworth Hospital is one of the world’s leading cardiothoracic hospitals and UK’s main heart and lung transplant centre. The University of East Anglia and Cambridge University send their medical students to hospitals around the deanery so you have the opportunity to be involved in medical education both within your hospital and at the universities themselves.

As the deanery is quite widespread most people choose to live in more central town areas and commute to work. Driving is useful and sometimes necessary, as certain shifts will end outside of the operating hours of public transport, however, most hospitals have on-call rooms for this reason. There are excellent transport links from Cambridge, Norwich and Peterborough to the rest of the country.

There are many beaches to visit along the east coast of England, and opportunities to sail on the Broads. You can even learn to paddleboard and surf whilst admiring the local wildlife which includes seals in Horsey.

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Join The Facebook Group

You can join the East Anglia Foundation School page here, plus the group for all UKFP 2023 trainee's here.

Foundation School Statistics

2022 Places: 276
2022 F1 Applicants: 148
2022 Competition Ratio: 0.54

2021 F1 Places: 251
2021 F1 Applicants: 121
2021 Competition Ratio: 0.48

‍Below is an interactive bar chart displaying the competition ratios, lowest entry scores, and the number of posts over the past 5 years.
Please note that the 2022 data for lowest entry score is not yet available, we will update this graph when it is.

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How Does East Anglia Compare To Other Foundation Schools?

Check out our article "What are the most competitive foundations schools?" for a full breakdown.

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Hospitals, Rotation Scores, CQC Ratings

In the chart below you'll find a list of hospitals attached to the East Anglia Foundation School, and an average of their Rotation Scores from Messly’s Training Navigator. Each rotation is given a score out of 100, which is based on a weighted average of ratings given by Foundation Trainees in the 2022 GMC NTS. The national average Rotation Score is 62 for reference.

Colours correspond to the latest CQC rating of that hospital.

Disclaimer: Please note that hospitals are unscored when there are insufficient responses by Foundation Trainees to the GMC’s NTS survey.

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Need Help Ranking Your Foundation Programmes?

Rank your Foundation Programme rotations with confidence with Messly’s Training Navigator. See how rotations are rated by last year’s foundation trainees to make smarter decisions about where you’ll spend your Foundation Training.

You can use it to answer questions like:‍

👉  Which are the best-rated and worst-rated rotations in my Foundation School?
👉  How do the rotations compare for Workload, Learning and Satisfaction?
👉  Which is the best hospital for my favourite specialties?
👉  Within a hospital, which rotations are best-rated?

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A Doctor’s View

“I spent my F1 & F2, in a small, well supported and very friendly DGH, Bedford Hospital. Initially I chose it so I could commute from London, only an hour each way. But soon, I got fed up with the commute and decided to stay in Bedford. This was probably one of the best decisions I had made and I stayed with a few other foundation doctors. After exploring the surrounding area, initial pre-conceptions of Bedford Hospital were quickly forgotten about. The beautiful countryside, with lovely walks and pubs made Bedford a delightful area.

Road transport is relatively good around Bedford – close to London with the M25, M1, A1 & M11. But unfortunately in most of Norfolk & Suffolk there is a distinct lack of motorways. Trains however run throughout the region, going into Kings Cross, London.”

Toby Gould, Foundation Year 1 & 2 at Bedford Hospital

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