SBAR is the structured handover used across the NHS, and UK interview panels score it directly: in the IMT clinical station the handover is a separate scored item, and in any deteriorating patient scenario the question "who do you call and what do you say" is a request for SBAR. A good clinical answer with a vague handover loses marks.
What the letters stand for
Situation: who you are, who the patient is, and the one line problem. "I am the SHO on ward 4. I have a 68 year old man who is hypotensive and tachycardic with a temperature."
Background: the relevant history and what has happened so far. The admission, the comorbidities that matter, the treatment given, the trend.
Assessment: what you think is going on and how unwell the patient is. "I think this is sepsis from a chest source and he is deteriorating despite two litres of fluid."
Recommendation: what you want the person you are calling to do, stated plainly. "I need you to come and review him in the next fifteen minutes, and I think he may need critical care outreach."
The forty second version
Panels want it short. Practise until each element is one or two sentences and the whole handover is under a minute. The recommendation is the part candidates most often leave vague; say what you want and when.
In the interview
When the panel asks who you would call, name the person and give the SBAR. When they worsen the scenario, update the assessment and the recommendation. When they ask what you would do if the registrar did not answer, escalate past them and give the SBAR to the next person. Say that you would read back any instructions and document the call.
Common failures
Reciting the whole clinical answer again under situation. Background that includes the patient's entire history. No assessment, so the senior has to work out how worried to be. A recommendation that asks for advice rather than action. And a handover delivered to the panel rather than as though on the phone.
At consultant level
The same structure runs upward: the consultant handing over to intensive care, phoning the medical director about an incident, or briefing the executive. Situation, the facts, your assessment, what you want them to do. Panels notice consultants who can brief a non clinical executive in SBAR.
ISBAR
Australian hospitals use ISBAR, with the identification of yourself and the patient made explicit as the first step. The structure is otherwise the same, and the ISBAR page covers the Australian context.
Practising
Take the ten acute scenarios for your level and hand each one over aloud in forty seconds. Record one. Then have someone play the senior who asks "so what do you want me to do?", because that is the question the recommendation should have answered.