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NHS · any trust · Band 2 to Band 9

NHS shortlisting is a scoring grid. Not a reading exercise.

Paste the person specification. Zappli maps your experience to every essential and desirable criterion, keeps the two apart because they are scored differently, and names the ones you cannot evidence yet.
Supporting information · essential and desirable · any band, any trust

Check a person spec free → See the 90-day pass
✓ No card needed✓ Your first advert is free✓ Nothing renews
app.zappli.co.uk · Application
Service Improvement Manager, Band 8a
NHS person specification · Northern Care NHS Foundation Trust
0essential
4 of 5 essential criteria evidenced
Managing devolved budget has nothing behind it yet. 5 of 6 overall, but the desirable one is a tie-break, not a gate.
4 Evidenced0 Partial1 Not yet
Criteria found 6
Read out of the person specification.
5 ESSENTIAL
1 DESIRABLE
Word limit 250
Taken from this advert, per essential criterion.
ENFORCED
Four essential criteria matched to your evidence bankEvidenced
Managing devolved budgetOnly report line up, not enough to say this criterion is covered.Nothing yet
One desirable criterion matchedEvidenced
31
criteria on a real Band 7
ward manager spec
24
of them essential,
each one pass or fail
7
desirable, which rank you
rather than gate you
0
criteria claimed without
your evidence behind them

Figures from a real NHS ward manager person specification Zappli was tested against.

The thing most applicants get wrong

Essential is a gate. Desirable is a tie-break.

They sit in the same table on the advert, so they look like one list. They are not. They decide two different things, and treating them as one number is how people talk themselves into applying when they are already out.

Essential · pass or fail
What you must have to be eligible

Miss one and you are not shortlisted, however many desirables you hold. There is no averaging and no making it up elsewhere. An essential criterion you have not addressed is scored as not met, not as unclear.

Desirable · ranking
What separates you from the rest of the shortlist

Used to decide who gets invited when there are a lot of applications. An uncovered desirable costs you position, not eligibility. Worth evidencing, never worth evidencing before you have closed an essential gap.

A single blended percentage hides the only answer that matters. Seven of eleven covered sounds like most of the way there. If four of the missing ones are essential, you are not eligible. Zappli leads with the essential count for exactly that reason, and shows the full count beside it.
Check a person spec free →Your first advert is free. No card, no account.
Why NHS applications fail differently

Most NHS adverts set no word limit. That is the trap.

A Civil Service behaviour box has a hard ceiling, so the failure is running long and getting cut. NHS supporting information usually states no ceiling at all, so nothing stops you writing a thousand words about the part of the job you enjoy most and never mentioning criterion six.

Civil ServiceNHS
The constraintA hard ceiling per box, set by the advertUsually no stated ceiling
How people failOverrun, then truncation or penaltyOmission, a criterion simply not covered
What the writing has to doCompress, and protect Action and ResultEnumerate, and prove coverage of every criterion

Where a trust does set a limit, and some set around 1,500 words across the whole statement, Zappli reads it from the advert, counts against it live and refuses to save an over-length answer. Where one budget is shared across several criteria, it is split across all of them rather than applied to each.

At the sift

What actually gets an NHS application rejected.

01
A criterion not covered
The panel scores against the grid. A criterion you did not address scores nothing, and if it is essential the application stops there.
02
A generic statement, reused
The same supporting information sent to four trusts answers none of their specifications properly. Panels see a great many of these.
03
Weak alignment to the specification
Writing about the job rather than against the criteria. The assessor is working down a list, and has to find each one.
04
Vague claims with nothing measurable
"Experienced in service improvement" is a claim. What changed, by how much, over what period, is evidence.
05
Structure the assessor has to hunt through
Unbroken prose makes the panel search for each criterion. Addressing them in the specification's own order and wording does not.
Band 5 to Band 6 to Band 7, from the same examples.

Everything you evidence goes into your evidence bank and stays there. The next specification is checked against it in seconds, and the same examples feed your CV, your supporting statement and your interview pack. NHS careers are built out of repeated applications, so the second one is always faster than the first.

Zappli will not invent an example. That is enforced in code, not promised in a prompt.

In an NHS application a fabricated example is a probity matter, and for someone already in the service it can be a disciplinary one. Every statement Zappli drafts returns the IDs of the evidence it drew on, and anything that cannot be traced back to something you wrote is rejected before you ever see it. Ask it to write a criterion you have no example for and it refuses, tells you so, and does not charge you for the refusal.

What this normally costs

Or pay someone else to write one statement.

These are published UK prices, from providers selling to exactly this audience.

What you buyTypical priceTurnaround
One NHS supporting statement£39.9948 hours
Three NHS supporting statements, one band move£119.9748 hours each
Ninety days of Zappli, every advert in the window£49.99minutes
Check a person spec free →Your first advert is free. No card, no account.

Source: how2become (NHS supporting information), which charges £14.99 to £34.99 extra for a one to three day turnaround. The three-statement figure is three times the published single price. Prices checked September 2026. A Zappli pass covers every advert you check and every statement you draft in the window, subject to fair use. Civil Service, teaching and local government applications are covered by the same pass: see the public sector page.

Questions

NHS applications, answered.

What should an NHS supporting statement include?
It has to show how you meet every criterion in the person specification, essential and desirable. Panels shortlist by scoring each application against those criteria directly, so a criterion you do not address is a criterion you score nothing on. Zappli reads the specification, separates essential from desirable, and shows which criteria your own experience already evidences. Read the guide to essential and desirable criteria.
Is there a word limit on NHS supporting information?
Usually no. NHS application guidance commonly sets no stated ceiling, which is why the risk is leaving a criterion out rather than running long. Some trusts do set one, often around 1,500 words. Where the advert states a limit, Zappli reads it and holds the draft inside it, splitting a shared budget across the criteria that share it.
What happens if I cannot evidence an essential criterion?
Zappli tells you. It will not claim coverage on a weak match and it will not draft a statement for a criterion you have no example for. An uncovered essential criterion is disqualifying at shortlisting, so knowing before you submit is the entire point of the check.
Does it work for any band and any trust?
It works from the person specification itself, so the band and the trust do not matter: paste or upload the specification from the advert, whichever system the trust recruits through. It has been tested on specifications from Band 6 through to Band 8a, including a ward manager specification carrying 31 criteria.
How is essential different from desirable?
Essential criteria are what you must have to be eligible, and missing one is disqualifying however many desirables you hold. Desirable criteria are used to separate candidates when there are a lot of applications, so they cost you position rather than eligibility. Zappli leads with the essential count for that reason.
Is the first check free, and what does it cost after that?
Your first advert is free, with no card and no account. After that, supporting statements are included with any pass: £9.99 for 7 days, £24.99 for 30 or £49.99 for 90. Each is a single payment that never renews, and your evidence bank stays with you for the next application.

Free guides for NHS applications

Written by the team behind Zappli. Each one is useful on its own, with or without the tool.

Essential and desirable criteria: only one is pass or fail →"750 words" does not mean 750 words each →The 250-word rule is not a rule →Why "we" costs you marks →Your CV is not your application →

Start with the specification in front of you.

Paste it and see which criteria your own experience already covers, essential first. Your first advert is free. No card, no account.

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✓ One payment only✓ Nothing renews✓ Your evidence bank is reusable for every future band