Welcome to the East of England Foundation Programme!
Thank you for looking at our web pages. Hopefully the information is clear, and you can find answers for any of your queries that are locally based!
For national FAQ, the UKFPO Rough Guide and Curriculum should answer most of your questions. You can also refer to the GMC website for guidance on registration, the UKFPO website or in their FAQ section for information on national policy and the medical careers website for careers advice. If you have questions that are specific to your personal situation and which are not answered on this page, they may be in our trainee hub pages, or then you should ask your FTPD in the first instance.
These pages are specific to NHSE EoE and our two foundation schools: East Anglia Foundation Schools (EAFS) and Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire (EBH).
Our Trusts
EAFS - EAFS has ten Trusts under its remit and is split into 2 regions EAFS East and EAFS West.
EBH - EBH foundation school has eight acute NHS Trusts under its remit and is split into 2 regions EBH East and EBH West.
Meet the team
Foundation Faculty
We liaise with the national group, other schools and supports within the deanery, the foundation training programme directors and medical education managers to set policy and guidance for foundation. We are part of various national groups looking to set the shape of training and best practice. We support trainees with difficulties, oversee recruitment and assessment, quality assurance and the education and training within trusts, and look to provide innovation and improve the benefit of training in foundation for you. We make the call on difficult decisions.
We have a number of team members from administration, recruitment, assessment, programmes and faculty support who work tirelessly to help keep the backbone function of Foundation, as well as the other schools, running smoothly. Their contacts are below.
- The Programme Management Team england.foundationrecruitment.eoe@nhs.net answer all the queries around rotations and programmes, and should be notified of sickness, maternity and all LTFT, TOFP and IFST requests
- The Assessment Team england.foundationassessment.eoe@nhs.net answer all the queries around ARCP
- Faculty Support Team england.foundationfaculty.eoe@nhs.net are involved with the Hub Events, wider programme issues and trainee representatives.
The wider team
The interface between the deanery and you is your local trust education team. This is led in foundation by your FTPD and the Medical Education Manager [MEM]. They organise local teaching and training, review their local rotations and troubleshoot for you, as well as liaise with your Education and Clinical Supervisors. We meet them at central teaching, training and business meetings, as well as when we drop in on trusts. They look at our ideas and aspirations and help hone them into workable advances for you.
What do we do?
We have three key themes we focus on each year:
- The first of our three key themes for foundation training in the East of England is Excellence in Education. We are aspiring to create a focussed, delivered educational programme of 60 mandatory hours per year for each trainee that covers the curriculum and is also inspiring. Look at our education page to find out more.
- We wish for trustworthy training rotations for our foundation doctors. We review the GMC survey and information we get from our Foundation training programme directors [ FTPD] , visits and trainee reps to provide suitable balanced rotations and provide quality training. Our hospitals can sometimes be hard pressed, and in those instances we work with them to provide solutions that maintain training and education. We aren't perfect, but we are aspiring to be better. Sometimes the best, and most innovative, solutions come from trainees themselves and we can help you with implementation. Our FTPD in each trust are there for your assistance.
- Our final strand is in personalising support. Becoming a doctor can be tough, and we want to do everything we can to help this go smoothly. We have an F2 to F1 mentorship programme, to support that step from medical student to doctor; resilience training workshops, careers and professional workshops. We are supportive of those requiring Less than Full Time Training [LTFTT] and if required time out of training or Inter-Foundation school transfers. We also have an excellent professional support unit for those that need a little more. The deanery trainee wellbeing hub describes many of the opportunities for you. We are looking to see what else would be helpful and useful. All ideas are considered! Either talk to your foundation representatives or FTPD about taking forwards good ideas.
Important dates
Welcome to EoE – open to all Foundation Trainees – link for registration https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/WelcomeEoE/- see poster here
- 9th July 2026 13.30-16.30
- 16th July 2026 13.30-16.30
- 23rd July 2026 13.30-16.30
Welcome to EoE slides can be found here
EoE IMG Induction – open to all EoE IMG Doctors – more details including registration link can be found here
- 28th July (virtual, whole day)
- 15th September (virtual, whole day)
Central PSA orientation session - open to those who are required to pass PSA exam – link for registration to follow
- 24th July 9.30-12.30
- 11th September 9.30-12.30
Trainee Representatives
These are the generic mailboxes used by our administrative teams.
· Foundation Recruitment: england.foundation.eoe@nhs.net
· Foundation assessment/sign off: england.foundationassessment.eoe@nhs.net
· Professional Support and Well-being Service (PSW): england.psw.eoe@nhs.net
· Foundation programmes and information : england.foundationrecruitment.eoe@nhs.net
· Foundation School Faculty - england.foundationfaculty.eoe@nhs.net
· Mentoring queries: england.mentoring.eoe@nhs.net
Various documents to support improving work/life balance as a junior doctor. Are these implemented in your trust? Could they make a difference?
https://improvement.nhs.uk/documents/1884/NHS-8-high-impacts-A4v5Bm_with_stickynotes_5_7dglFbL.pdf
Yes you are expected to undertake night shifts. More details on rota can be obtained from your Trusts.
You need to contact the Trust, Programme team and recruitment to inform them why you will be unable to start and ask for a deferral. You will need to do that now and not delay in informing them.
england.foundationfaculty.eoe@nhs.net
In f1 all of your study leave is for the taught programme e.g hubs etc. There is no additional study leave in f1. All f1 and f2 get 2 hours per week to use for self-development - which is not the 60 hours - and is for working on ePortfolio, doing audit, teaching medical and PA students, meeting supervisors etc. You do not need to use Non Working Days for Hubs.
As soon as possible, ideally within a few days of the incident
What ever feels to you as being significant or regular lateness. As a guide anything more than 30mins.
Yes. Further info on Study Leave can be found at https://heeoe.hee.nhs.uk/foundation/training-programme/taught-programmestudy-leave. Annual Leave, Sick Leave and Study Leave are all separate! All of study, annual and sick leave entitlements increase with service length through your training. For more details catch a BMA contract talk or visit their page on leave entitlements.
You can view last year' spreadsheet to get an idea - most of last year's results are being re-run.
If there's nothing in your sub region, contact the administrator for the location of the one you are interested in. They will be able to advise if there is space for you to attend.
It is part of your study leave. A 5-day Taster in the second or third FY1 placement (not both) is allowed. The time for this activity is borrowed from the FY2 study leave allowance and can therefore be attended in addition to the 90-hour FY1 allowance. Each Taster week is the equivalent of 5x6 hours (30 hours total). More information can be found on the link below : https://heeoe.hee.nhs.uk/foundation/training-programme/taught-programmestudy-leave
Go back to the rota coordinator and highlight to your FTPD at the trust
If you do the eALS - that is one day of online learning (for which you get study leave) and one day in person (for which you also get study leave), and both days cost around £275 - that should be covered. If you did the two day all in-person course then that would be more expensive and you may need to top things up.
Yes, this is part of your study leave allowance for FY1, but you will need to ensure that your hospital is aware that you will not be at work.
Yes definitely! You'll have 9 days per rotation, 27 overall. You can't usually roll them over
Yes it is part of the taught programme and you will need to have done this during your foundation programme.
That will be to your resus officer at the hospital from a trust mandatory training perspective; from an FY1 requirements perspective you will need to upload it onto your Horus eportfolio
If you passed your PSA exam after submitting your STEP form, please make sure you send a copy of your certificate to england.foundationfaculty.eoe@nhs.net
If you need to re-sit your exam or have not yet passed it (IMG FY1 trainees), please visit the UKFPO PSA microsite and review the available resources https://foundationprogramme.nhs.uk/curriculum/prescribing-safety-assessment-psa/ The preparation resources for sitting the PSA webpage includes materials to support FP candidates sitting the PSA.
A new 60-item mock paper for foundation doctors has been developed and further information is available on the UKFP PSA mock paper – Guidance webpage. The mock paper will be available from 09:00, Friday 21 August to 17:00, Friday 28 August 2026.
Alternatively we would encourage to attend Central PSA orientation session - open to those who are required to pass PSA exam, next session takes place on 11th September (9.30-12.30). If you would like to book please contact england.foundationfaculty.eoe@nhs.net
