How to Pass an NHS Values-Based Interview

If you have an interview for any NHS role — nurse, healthcare assistant, ambulance call handler, 111 advisor, allied health professional or administrator — you will be assessed using values-based recruitment. That means the panel is checking not only whether you can do the job, but whether your values match those of the NHS. This guide explains what that involves and how to prepare.

The six NHS values

The values come from the NHS Constitution, and every values-based question maps back to one of them:

• Working together for patients — patients come first in everything the NHS does.
• Respect and dignity — valuing every person as an individual.
• Commitment to quality of care — getting the basics right and speaking up when standards slip.
• Compassion — responding with humanity and kindness.
• Improving lives — focusing on health, wellbeing and professionalism.
• Everyone counts — making sure nobody is excluded or left behind.

What the questions look like

Values-based questions are usually behavioural — they begin "Tell me about a time…" or "Describe a situation where…" — but they are aimed at how you treat people rather than your technical skill. For example: "Tell me about a time you put a patient or service user first," or "Describe a time you showed compassion to someone who was struggling."

How to prepare

Work through these four steps in the week before your interview:

• Read the six values alongside the job description and person specification.
• For each value, prepare one real example. It does not have to be from healthcare — caring for a relative, helping a customer, or supporting a classmate all count.
• Structure each example with STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result), but keep the person you helped at the centre of the story.
• Be authentic. Rehearsed, corporate-sounding answers land badly in values interviews — warmth and honesty score.

A strong NHS answer often turns on a small, human detail: the moment you noticed someone was struggling, what you did, and how it changed things for them.

Practise with the NHS Interview Coach

Reading model answers is not the same as delivering one under pressure. The single best thing you can do is rehearse aloud and get honest feedback. Our NHS Interview Coach is built for exactly this, and it tailors everything to your situation:

• Choose your UK nation — England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland — and your answer is assessed against that nation's NHS values (the six NHS Constitution values in England, the NHS Scotland values, the FREDA principles in Wales, or the HSC "Values for All" in Northern Ireland).
• Choose your Agenda for Change band (Bands 1–9). The questions and the standard you're marked against are pitched to the level a panel actually expects for that band — a Band 8 answer is held to a far higher bar than a Band 3 one.
• Get instant, honest feedback on what worked, what's missing for your band, and how to fix it — plus a suggested rewrite of your own answer, restructured into STAR and tightened to your band.

Your first feedback is free, no card needed — then it's a one-time £14.99 for unlimited practice across every nation, band and question.