Annual Scottish Medical Appraisers Conference

(Incorporated as part of the Scottish Medical Education Conference (SMEC))

The annual Scottish Medical Appraisers conference was incorporated into the SMEC (along with the Practice Managers conference) once again this year, held at the EICC on 5th and 6th of May 2016. We took on board the feedback received in the previous year and created more Appraiser focused topics, discussions and workshops, and this was reflected in the feedback received.

Team Members update

For the second year running, we have enjoyed sustained support for SOAR users following the successful contracts renewal of Alistair Bryan and Kris Wright to the posts of Information Technicians for a further year, meaning their invaluable contribution to supporting SOAR and Medical Appraisal will continue.

Following Ian Staples’ departure last year, Harry Peat was appointed to the role of Training Manager (Medical Appraisal) in February 2016. Harry joins us from his previous role as Quality Improvement Manager (NES) and is no stranger to working with our medical colleagues.  His arrival coincides with the beginning of the second Revalidation cycle and we look forward to an exciting new chapter ahead.

Alexandra (Aly) Clydesdale joined the team as Admin Assistant on a short term contract in March 2016. Aly has been doing invaluable work interrogating the appraiser tracker database to help with forward planning of course provision, and has been a big help in supporting the training courses, and SOAR users on the helpdesk.

National Appraisal Administrators Meeting

The annual National Appraisal Admins meeting (with Primary and Secondary colleagues) was also held on 5th May 2016 at the EICC as part of the pre-conference meetings.  The meeting was attended by 20 Local Administration team members, plus 5 NES staff.

Prior to the meeting, an updates report was sought from the local admins, from which several highlights were discussed.

The main discussion focused on the issue of New Appraisers recruitment, and the number of appraisals expected of the appraisers. 102 New Appraisers were trained in 2015/2016, with 78 attending our Refresher training. In Primary Care, GP Appraisers are asked to undertake circa 22 appraisals per session; Secondary Care Appraisers are expected to undertake circa 10 appraisals – as recommended by the Scottish Government.

From the Medical Appraisal team’s point of view, our role is to train and support the Appraisers.  We will do all we can to maintain our support, but clearly it is the health boards’ responsibility to manage their appraisal / appraiser workforce.

Given the theme of the discussion topics, a workshop (adapted from the Appraiser training course) was arranged for the administrators to give them a better understanding of how the Appraiser courses are run, and a flavour of what participants do at the training courses.  This was well received and workshops for Local Admins will be considered for future meetings.