Training and Recruitment
Training and Recruitment of Medical Appraisers
Medical Appraiser training courses in 2017/2018
2017/2018 has been another successful and busy year for the training team as it strived to meet ongoing demand for training of New Appraisers. With Appraisal and revalidation now embedded and into its second 5-year cycle, turnover of appraisers due to other work commitments or retirement is beginning to impact in some of the territorial Boards.
The team sought to forecast the potential demand for the training of new appraisers and to factor this into a distributed series of courses across Scotland. As part of our cost efficiencies we have, where possible, brought courses in-house to use the modern office facilities of the NES estate.
Whilst this has predominantly been at our larger offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, we have also utilised Inverness and provided training at Stirling Management Centre to give a location in central Scotland that would be easier to access for those based further north. The potential exists to use the recently re-furbished NES offices in Aberdeen however we are yet to run a course at that location as demand for places in 2017 was insufficient to make a course viable.
We carried out 14 training events this year across Scotland:
- 2-day New Appraiser Training (x7)
- 1-day Refresher Training (x3)
- additional 2-day New Appraiser Training (x1)
- 1-day Responsible Officers Conference Day (x1)
- 1-day Tutor Training Day (x1)
- 1 day Postgraduate Deans Appraiser Training (x1)
Three 2-day New Appraiser courses and four 1-day Refresher courses that were scheduled across the year had to be cancelled due to insufficient delegate numbers.
The 7 New Appraiser Training courses successfully trained a total of 79 new Secondary Care Appraisers and 19 new Primary Care (GP) Appraisers.
In Scotland, it is a Revalidation requirement for all appraisals to be completed by a NES-trained Appraiser. The Refresher Medical Appraiser training offers an opportunity for experienced appraisers to refresh their skills and allow them to continue in their role as an appraiser. Refresher training is recommended to be undertaken every 5 years by active appraisers.
During the period covered by this report a total of 43 Secondary Care Appraisers and 8 Primary Care Appraisers attended our Refresher training events.
The following tables give a further breakdown of course numbers.
New Medical Appraiser Training Courses
The following table illustrates the attendance at the courses.
1 additional New Appraiser Training Course (XN9) was added into our existing training delivery schedule to meet the demand for training that emerged late in 2017.
Refresher Medical Appraiser Training Course
We successfully trained 8 Primary Care and 43 Secondary Care doctors. The following table summarises attendance at the courses.
Interested in becoming an Appraiser?
If you are interested in attending either of our training events then you can find further details via the Medical Appraisal website.
http://www.appraisal.nes.scot.nhs.uk/
Training course details follow from this link
http://www.appraisal.nes.scot.nhs.uk/be-an-appraiser.aspx
Please then discuss further with your local Appraisal Lead as Appraisal management processes vary across the Health Boards in Scotland and it is important that you understand the requirements of your Board and that they can guide and support you in the Appraiser role.
Distribution of trained resources across Health Boards
Secondary Care Appraisers
During Financial Year 2017/18 we have successfully trained 122 Secondary Care doctors; 79 of whom attended the New Appraiser courses, and 43 attended the Refresher courses. The spread across the Health Boards is summarised below:
Primary Care Appraisers
We trained a total of 27 Primary Care doctors, 19 new GP Appraisers, and 8 GP Appraisers attended a Refresher course this year. The distribution over Health Boards is shown below:
The number of appraisers, appraisees and appraisals undertaken, per Health Board, is summed up for GP's and Secondary Care doctors in tables under Appendix A and B.
Challenges in the delivery of training
The main challenge to emerge across all the types of courses that we delivered during 2017-18 was the lack of availability of delegates.
This resulted in some courses being deleted from the delivery schedule due to insufficient numbers of applications and others that had to be amended, often at short notice, as service pressures reduced the numbers of planned attendees.
We recognise the pressures and conflict of priorities that can arise within the Service and naturally support the priority of delivering safe and effective patient care, however it would be concerning if the need for Appraisal training and delivery were to become a secondary priority, given its relevance to clinicians and the License to Practice requirements of the GMC that the Appraisal and Revalidation process delivers.
We recognise that the timing of proposed courses may benefit from being reviewed as it may not be practical to aim to deliver courses during the winter months when service demand is at its highest and, from trends analysis work that we have conducted, many appraisers are in their busiest period of appraisal activity.
With this in mind we are looking at a revised course delivery schedule for 2018-19 where the majority of training will be concentrated in periods that we hope will prove to be less conflicting in terms of peaks in demand for Service delivery.
NHS Education for Scotland
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© NHS Education for Scotland 2018. You can copy or reproduce the information in this document for use within NHSScotland and for non-commercial educational purposes. Use of this document for commercial purposes is permitted only with the written permission of NES.