July 2015
Statement on Appraisal Toolkits
NHS England will no longer fund appraisal vehicles such as electronic toolkits and as a result of this position statement, the Severn Appraisal Toolkit will be decommissioned on 31st March 2016. GPs who currently use SAT will be looking for an alternative appraisal toolkit. South Central cannot recommend any one toolkit over another as the choice lies with the GP however the toolkit chosen must meet with GMC guidelines and must facilitate the Responsible Officer to make the revalidation recommendations.
Locally, our GP appraisers are most familiar with the Clarity Appraisal Toolkit which is linked to the RCGP. The MAGMAF (Medical Appraisal Guide Medical Appraisal Form) is a pdf form which is free to use and fit for purpose. Other toolkits are available at individual cost. Currently (July 2015) GPTools is being reviewed due to potential concern re fitness for purpose so please check with the appraisal office for an update on its suitability.
Statement on Colleague and Patient Surveys
GMC requires that a doctor should undertake a minimum of one patient and one colleague feedback survey in a 5 year revalidation cycle. These should cover the doctor’s entire scope of work. The GMC would expect a doctor to repeat a survey within the same cycle should there be a significant change in the scope of work such that an old survey is no longer applicable OR should the first survey indicate that significant changes needed to be made to improve a doctor’s performance in this area.
Surveys should be accompanied by a self-assessment and be benchmarked against other doctors in a similar role.
The survey tool and the manner by which it is processed should comply with GMC guidance. GMC guidance is that collation of the results should be independent of the doctor. For the sake of clarification, the Responsible Officer, Geoff Payne, has confirmed that the practice manager or another member of the practice team is not considered to be independent of the GP. This is in line with RCGP guidance which states that surveys should be collated by an external survey organisation.
Best practice is for colleague feedback to be collected electronically and for patient feedback to be collected on paper (and additionally electronically if preferred but not solely electronically).
Survey tools known to be validated in primary care and thus acceptable to the RO include Clarity, CFEP, Edgecumbe and Fourteen Fish. Other tools may be acceptable but please confirm this with the appraisal office before undertaking them. Each survey tool publishes the number of respondents required for the survey to be valid and these numbers do vary between tools. Usually, the survey should reach or exceed the minimum number of respondents required. The RO and appraisal lead recognize that this is not always easy for some types of GP and will consider accepting surveys with a lesser number of respondents where a genuine attempt has been made to reach the required number, the responses received are representative of the doctor's scope of practice and there is clear evidence of reflection and learning from the outcome. The appraiser will use their professional judgement in such cases and may seek advice from a senior appraiser, the appraisal lead or the RO.
The date of the survey tool must be within 5 years of the revalidation date for it to be acceptable. Surveys completed before the GMC guidelines were clarified (ie before April 2013) may be acceptable if they were carried out in good faith, separately from the GP, with a reasonable number of respondents across the doctors scope of practice and with evidence of reflection and learning. The appraiser will use their professional judgement in viewing such surveys and may seek advice from a senior appraiser, the appraisal lead or RO if they are uncertain whether a survey is valid or not.
Dr Geoff Payne
Responsible Officer
NHS England South
(South Central)
Sanger House
5220 Valliant Court
Gloucester Business Park
Brockworth
Gloucester
GL3 4FE / Dr Sue Frankland
GP Appraisal lead
Tel: +44 (0) 113 825 3515
Mobile: 07900 715279
e-mail:
website:
For further information on Appraisal and Revalidation please visit :~
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