What to include in your appraisal portfolio

You should: 

• describe all the work you do which requires you to have a licence to practise including any work for voluntary organisations, private practice, leadership, management, academic, research, teaching, and training. This helps your appraiser and responsible officer understand the full range of your practice 
• include details of where you have worked since your last appraisal with contact details for each place of work / organisation 
• describe any significant changes in your scope of work since your last appraisal, or changes you are preparing for. 

Your appraisal portfolio is normally only available to you and your appraiser (or appraisal lead) and responsible officer (or designated deputy). It should follow all relevant information governance and data protection laws. It is inappropriate to include any third-party identifiable information, whether about patients or colleagues, without explicit permission, unless the information is already in the public domain. We do not, therefore, recommend uploading minutes from meetings attended by other identifiable staff or complaints identifying colleagues by name. Rather than carefully anonymising original documents and uploading them to your portfolio, you can summarise the case and learning. If you are asked to clarify further, you might consider sharing/screen sharing documents in person/virtually or emailing them using secure NHS addresses so that your appraiser can read them without you including every detail in the portfolio. Your appraiser can then summarise your reflection and any learning in the summary.

Your portfolio is a professional document, and reflective notes included in it should be written in a professional way. It could be subject to a request to disclose by a court of law just as clinical notes can be. If they are appropriately written, your reflective notes can demonstrate your learning and insight into any incident or complaint under investigation. Your appraiser should be able to support you in ensuring that you have demonstrated your reflective practice in a professional way, that is proportionate and maintains confidentiality as far as possible.

The GMC will not require or request any details of an appraisal when conducting a fitness to practise inquiry, although you may wish to share these with the GMC to show your engagement in the appraisal process and demonstrate your insight and the quality of your reflective practice.  

Your appraisal portfolio should provide your appraiser with details of any previous appraisals since your last revalidation date. This includes an explanation for any ‘approved missed’ appraisals, for example, if you’ve had parental leave, long-term sickness absence or if it was cancelled because of absence.

If it is your first appraisal post-CCT your appraiser can expect you to provide them with your post-CCT personal development plan, discussed with your Trainer at your final educational supervisor's review. This enables them to confirm the statement "A review that demonstrates appropriate progress against the previous personal development plan has taken place." The appraiser may need to justify to your RO disagreeing any such statement if you are unable to provide your post-CCT PDP. This is unlikely to cause a problem for a future revalidation recommendation.

If it’s your first appraisal of this revalidation cycle, your appraiser should have access to your last appraisal before you revalidated. Some doctors who are new or returning to the NHS may never have had an appraisal and will not have any previous details to share. The electronic toolkits allow you to indicate this and your appraiser will help you to gather an appropriate portfolio of supporting information. 

You’ll need to describe what progress, if any, you’ve made towards each PDP aim from your last appraisal (or your final educational supervisor’s review). The aims from your PDP are generally designed to be met by the time you have your next appraisal, though you can set some aspirational or longer term aims. You should then detail any changing priorities and circumstances throughout the year which may have changed your original PDP and led to aims being dropped, modified, or carried forward.

Make sure you reflect in your appraisal submission on the professional and personal challenges you have faced since your last appraisal. Consider what have been your greatest achievements and what your aspirations, both personally and professionally, are for the year ahead especially if you are thinking of diversifying your portfolio or taking on new roles.

Thinking about this before your appraisal discussion will further facilitate verbal reflection during your appraisal discussion.

In the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges’ Medical Appraisal Guide 2022 process, you will be invited to score the question ‘How are you?’ on a scale of one to ten. You might also reflect with your appraiser on how to maintain or improve your self-rating for work-leisure balance. 

Your appraiser can help you reflect on your scope and volume of work and guide you on flexibilities and they can signpost you to useful support if needed.

In England, after discussion with your appraiser you will be invited to sign a declaration that you accept the professional obligations in Good medical practice about your own health.

In Scotland, the online SOAR platform will ask for you to sign a wellbeing and health declaration which your appraiser will discuss with you at the time of your appraisal interview.

In Wales, the MARS site has a number of declarations to complete, which includes one on health.

A health issue that might affect patient care should be addressed outside the appraisal setting and doctors have a professional obligation under Good medical practice to engage with appropriate help and make reasonable adjustments to ensure patient safety. It is optional if, and how much, you discuss your health with your appraiser, but if there are reasonable adjustments that need to be made to ensure patients are not affected by your health condition then it is important to declare them, even if only to record that reasonable adjustments have been made. 

That said, many doctors find their appraiser a helpful person to speak to in this area, but you should always feel in control of this. If you do discuss a health matter, this should be recorded with care in the appraisal summary, in terms that you are comfortable with.

You may want to consider:

• How has the time since your last appraisal affected your wellbeing?  
• Have you accessed support when you’ve needed it?  
• How have you maintained your health and wellbeing?  
• What, if anything, do you want to do differently for the year ahead? 

Remember - your reflection in the discussion is the key activity of your appraisal. Your supporting information and preparatory thinking should help make this as useful as possible.