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| # | Scottish Medical Appraisers Conference sessions |
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| 02 |
Beyond boundaries: Reimagining Medical Appraisal Cross specialty appraisal is fast becoming common place between secondary care colleagues, and even between primary and secondary care colleagues. In this session we explored the benefits and logistics of cross specialty appraisals, areas of different challenges and common grounds. Speakers:
Q&A Panel:
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Would you approve someone to discuss SAI to MDU or BMA and how much information they can share with these outside bodies under GDPR rules?
Assuming that the appraiser will have used the standard form of words at the beginning of the appraisal that although normally confidential, there may be [exceptional] circumstances where because of concerns about patient safety, information may have to be shared.
How will cross specialty appraisal work as payment and organisation will be very different across primary and secondary care?
It depends on the health board management and resources - for example, in NSS cross specialty appraisal is built-in as standard practice through job planning, appraising doctors from a variety of origins and specialties.
I always worry that if the PSQ is left until year 5 something happens that year say illness and this is an issue to revalidation.
Practice and guidance can differ from board to board, however it is probably sensible not to leave it until the last moment (although we seem to have been able to work round this during and coming out of Covid). ROs can also defer a doctor's revalidation, which is a neutral act, for 6 - 12 months as needed.
Some folk have difficulty getting their patient feedback often relating to their specialty, so it can be good to advise starting early as not having enough feedback can result in a delay in recommending revalidation.
[reply from Dr George Fernie, SC Appraisal Lead NSS] Most of the doctors I appraise do not provide direct clinical care so it's not an issue. As a rule, the HB where clinical care is being delivered has primacy so those colleagues would normally be appraised there with a 'letter of comfort' from the other board so that all aspects are covered in a single appraisal. I happen to be an exception in that my main role is with HIS but in Lothian we can only submit indirect anonymised PSQ as 'patients' are either potentially violent/under the influence in police custody, victims of serious crime or suspects - hence PSQs are not applicable.
Has retire and return been considered in NHS Scotland to assist with availability of appraisers?
The ethos should be that the appraiser has a licence to practise and [partial] retirement per se is not a reason to not to do this – see comments above re those who do not see patients.
We also raised issues around the administration/ allocation of appraisees across primary and secondary care in view of timelines and expectations. We felt that there was definitely some value and positive aspects to this model.
This does need to be factored in but agree there are benefits.
In secondary care NHSH we are not individually funded to do appraisals. Those of us that do it are using SPA time. Many staff will not feel able to donate their SPA time to doing appraisal - so the organisation will need to buy more consultants or persons who can have SPA to do appraisal.
Management of this differs between boards but some do this within the job plan and not in SPA. There should be a distinction between using SPA in preparation for your own appraisal and revalidation, as opposed to undertaking appraisal of others.
Joint appraisal sounds much more threatening to me.
Rapport and balanced authority might be more difficult to achieve between three different personalities.
Logistical issues can vary between individuals. NSS (and GG&C) have a number of doctors requiring joint appraisal and have regularly achieved this where this is a requirement; and reports that it seems to function well in reality.
In England there is no time limit after retirement from clinical work that appraisers can continue to work.
As set out in the Medical Appraisal Guidance Scotland, normally an appraiser will be in current practice or within 3 years of retirement. Exceptional circumstances will be considered at the RO's discretion.
There were other general comments around whether clinically retired appraisers require appraisal or licence to practice (LtP) to remain an appraiser. Whilst LtP is not a necessity to remain an appraiser, you are expected to remain on the GMC register. We will explore more on this topic in the webinar "Medico-Legal Awareness for Appraisers" on 29th October from 12:30pm to 1:30pm. This session will be recorded and shared afterwards for those unable to attend.
Beyond Boundaries: Reimagining Medical Appraisal (slides)
Date updated: 05/09/2025
Size: 789816 - KB
Type: pdf
This page was last updated on: 08/09/2025
