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Appraisal Leads and Responsible Officers

Appraisal Leads and Responsible Officers


Specific SOAR user guidance for Appraisal Leads and Responsible Officers are in development, and will be published ASAP.

Please note however, most of the information and access Appraisal Leads and ROs will have are be similar to that of the Admin Teams.

Please also review guidance for Appraisers and Appraisees if you are unfamiliar with SOAR (items listed in sub menu on side); or review the overview video guidance.

Key SOAR functions for Appraisal Leads include:

  • Review Appraisal Form 4s
  • Approve Forms 5A/B (non participation of appraisal)
  • Make suggested outcomes (ready/not ready) in support of a doctor's revalidation
  • Access to appraisers' feedback reports

Key SOAR functions for ROs includes:

  • Review Form 4s of all doctors in employing health board
  • Make revalidation recommendations (which is sent to GMC Connect for processing)

1. How do ROs revalidate on SOAR?

ROs have the function to make revalidation recommendations directly on SOAR (saves from having to login to GMC Connect separately).

This can be done individually or in batches, and we have also built in an extra step for Appraisal Leads to review prior to ROs' actioning (which can be bypassed as needed).

The process is that Appraisal Leads would review the list of people who require revalidation first and make a suggestion, based on information available on SOAR, whether the appraisee is ready or not for revalidation.  The idea is that those marked as "ready" would appear on the ROs' list with confidence that they have been reviewed already.

The function/authority to make the revalidation recommendations lie solely with the RO (not Appraisal Leads).

When someone is within 3 months of their revalidation due date, they are labelled as "under notice" on GMC Connect.  These doctors are listed on SOAR for the Appraisal Leads/ROs to review and action as appropriate.

To review the list of people due for revalidation, click on "Revalidation Recommendation" from the menu.  By default it will list those deemed as "Ready" by the system for review and actioning.  Either select all on the list and batch "revalidate" everyone as a single action, or review each one individually and action from there.

You can only batch action positive recommendations.  Those needing deferrals or not recommend will require actioning individually.

2. How to access Form 6 reports

Feedback Form 6 is completed by appraisees (Form 6A) and appraisers (Form 6B) at the conclusion of the appraisal.

Anonymised reports are available on SOAR via the "Reports" page from the menu on the left.

You will be prompted to enter From/To dates (appraisal meeting) in the search criteria; and a report is only generated IF the search result has a minimum of 3 appraisals (to help ensure the process stays anonymised).

3. How do Appraisal Leads sign off Form 5?

There are two types of Form 5:

  • Form 5A:  Exemption from appraisal
  • Form 5B:  Notification of non-engagement

When a Form 5A or 5B has been submitted by the appraiser (or local admin), the Appraisal Lead has to countersign to approve the submission and they will receive a system notification on this.  To review and sign off the Form 5:

  1. Login to SOAR (in Appraisal Lead role)
  2. Either click on the link from the email which will take you straight to the Form 5, or use the available search functions to locate the appraisee/appraisal in question
  3. When in the Form 5, review the content submitted by the appraiser
  4. The "Approve" button is at the bottom of the page if you are happy to sign off the Form 5; else you can reject the Form 5 (you will be prompted for comments)

4. How to search for outstanding appraisals to chase up?

To check on whose appraisals still to be signed off, you can search the appraisal using both the interview and the form statuses:

Interview search filters

  1. Click on "Interviews" from the menu
  2. in the "Interview status" dropdown select "To be submitted and in progress"
  3. in the "Form status" dropdown select "Form 4 forwarded"
  4. Click "Search"

This will bring up a list of appraisees whose Form 4 still awaits their review and sign off.

You can change the filter for Form status to "Form 4 draft" and this will list the appraisals where it still awaits the appraiser to forward the form.

If you change the Form status filter to "Form 5A forwarded", this brings up a list of appraisals where the Form 5A has been forwarded by the appraiser, but is waiting for the Appraisal Lead to sign off.

Related Documents

SOAR Guidance for ROs

Guidance on how to use SOAR's Revalidation Dashboard to make recommendations to the GMC

Date updated: 21/03/2022

Size: 1388032 - KB

Type: pps

(98) Using News Alert Function

Guidance for Appraisers, Admin teams and Appraisal Advisers

Date updated: 21/03/2022

Size: 1223680 - KB

Type: pps

(99) How to Contact the SOAR Helpdesk

For all SOAR Users

Date updated: 21/03/2022

Size: 807424 - KB

Type: pps



This page was last updated on: 19/08/2024