Sign up and choose your appraiser
Welcome to this section on Improval. Now, Improval is the platform that I use for all my appraisals. And in this video, we're going to talk about the appraisal form on Improval. We're going to look at each subsection, what you might upload as evidence and examples for each, and ultimately, what do you need to do to be ready for the appraisal meeting? So before we get into that, why do I use the software platform? It's a reasonable question. There are many, many different software solutions for appraisal. Improval is recently designed. It's modern. It has AI elements. It's been designed by a doctor who will have been through appraisals themselves. And you can see that in its functionality. It's very intuitive. It's very easy to use. But more than that, it is available for just five pounds a month. So that makes it very accessible. Somebody that just wants to prepare for your appraisal upcoming shortly, you might just use it for a couple of months. But equally, at this low cost, it's available there. You know, if you're in your FY3 year and you want to upload evidence as you go, which is probably the ideal way to do things, then is also suitable for that purpose as well. So how do we get started? So it's a case of going to improval.com, registering for an account, go through the verification process. And then when we log in, so let me just, let me just do this. Okay. So when you log in, you'll get this screen. And the first thing that you want to do is go to my appraisal, appraisal details, and this button here, set appraiser. Okay. And this is where you want to add me. So I'm available on AndrewChristopher01@outlook.com. And please, if you can, tick this box here, which gives early access. That means I can see your appraisal as you're uploading evidence, so I can give you more tailored advice if you have individualised questions. Click Send Invite. That will give me access.

Set up your appraisal
Okay, welcome to the Improval Dashboard. Just want to do a bit of orientation here so that you know your way around the software and you can use all of its functionality. So this is the homepage. If we click Open My Appraisal, then we get to the main appraisal form with all the subsections that need completing before the appraisal meeting itself. And we will talk through each section. You can also navigate here if you click My Appraisal. And it's just worth noting here that it says appraisal 2027 and 2028. So, Improval is set up, anticipating your appraisal in one year's time. So before we start populating all these various sections, it's worth getting the appraisal details right. So if we go here to appraisal dates, edit dates, and we want to set the end date as the date of the Appraisal meeting itself. Now, I guess you might not know when this is, but we're just going to imagine here that it's sometime soon. So here we are in November. So let's say we go for Monday. Now the start date will be normally previous. It might be a bit longer than 12 months. It should be the date of the last appraisal, really. So let's say this was, yeah, the 9th, 11th, 2025 is just fine. If you're in FY2, then I would suggest you set your start date as the August that you were in FY2. So generally for an FY2, moving into FY3, you would do your appraisal around a year following completion. Of your FY2. I know your ARCP will be maybe in June or April, et cetera, but it's not a year later. So, for example, for this year, if you finished your FY2 on the 1st of August, 2026, I'd expect your appraisal to be due on the 1st of August, 2027. Okay, if we save this, we can then see that the appraisal changes to 2026, 2027. Okay, revalidation date is worth setting this. Again, you know, if you're FY3, Then your revalidation date will be four years after the completion of your FY2. If you're anybody else that's got a new licence to practise, it will be five years from the date you gained full registration. Do also set your designated body if you have one. If you don't have one, then you can just say not applicable or click other and you can just say no designated body and the appraiser we've already done hopefully. Okay, so some other features to discuss. So let's go back to the home. And here we have voice notes. So this is a really useful feature. Yes, if you have your appraisal in that time, but maybe more so if you are going to use Improval for the year, what this allows you to do, just like speaking into AI, you could speak into Improval in the form of a voice note, and it will organise your thoughts into a nice entry. Whether that be CPD or significant event, compliment, complaints, quality improvement. So this is good to do as you go. Like maybe, maybe be into an MDT and you just want to quickly write, you know, speak your thoughts into Improval and get a nice entry. Maybe you've been to, you know, you've had a difficult encounter with a patient and you've encountered a complaint and you want to record your thoughts. This just organises this in a professional way for you. Okay, so there's some other features here. Feedback. So if you want to do patient or colleague feedback, you don't have to use an additional service. You don't have to give out physical paper forms, although you can. This will organise things nicely for you. I won't go through how to use it in detail, but obviously it's just a case of clicking new feedback exercise. And then we can see we've got colleague feedback and patient feedback, and we can send Individualised feedback forms to either patients or colleagues. And finally is the compliance passport. So this is really for your mandatory training. So like your moving and handling fire safety, data protection, etc. Now, there's a little bit of a distinction to draw here. So if you want to add your mandatory training to your compliance passport, that's fine. Equally, you might put it in CPD. I don't personally mind where you kind of put that evidence. So you can put it here, you can put it in the CPD section. Okay, let's talk about the appraisal form itself.

General information and scope of work
Okay, let's talk about the first section, which is general information. So the very first subsection is personal details, fairly self-explanatory, your demographics, contact details. These include your GMC number. Qualifications, so do include where you've got your medical degree, additional degrees, exams that you've passed like MRCP. Okay, scope of work. So this is the first important section really. The scope of work is basically what you've been doing clinically for the year previously. Now, it is important to declare anything you use your GMC number for. So at the start of your career, this is generally one thing. You might have done locums or you might have done an observership or clinical fellow role. It's generally one thing. And as you go throughout your career, As you become more senior, you tend to pick up additional roles, additional responsibilities, you tend to work maybe for more than one organisation. As you can see for myself, you know, there's my main consultant role, but also Medical Appraisal, and I do some legal work, expert witness work. You must declare everything you use your GMC number for. It is worth saying though that you may have jobs. That are aligned to medicine, but don't require a GMC number for. So for example, if you've got a role in med tech, then please do include it. You don't have to declare it, but it does add flavour to the appraisal. Similarly, you know, you might be an IMG and you may be doing an observership, but you're also working as a HCA. Again, it's still relevant, like it is still. Experience within the healthcare sector. And it is something we might discuss in the appraisal. So please do include definitely every role where you use your GMC number, but also the roles where you don't. And even if it's getting further away from medicine, maybe you're kind of doing some health work or finance work, et cetera, that isn't... Patient facing, I still think it's helpful to declare it and to discuss it. And it might feature as part of your goals, really, to be a more pragmatic assessment of where you're at. OK, only need to include things for the appraisal year. It is often helpful if you've got something that's just the job before your appraisal year, just the one before, just gives a good chronology. So feel free to include that as well. And then you can ask these two questions. So please describe any changes to your scope of work, and do you anticipate any role changes? So again, you know, doesn't need to be extensive what you say here. But for example, you know, you might be an F3, and you may have changed from moving from a permanent training program, i.e. foundation year two into locuming. And next year, you might be thinking of going into a clinical fellow role. Maybe you're doing a master's. Also, it's worth just giving an idea of what's changed, what's likely to change next year. And as you can see, for both of these, I've put four lines. It doesn't need to be very extensive. And then there's an area here where you can do some role reflection, if you wish. Again, if you do these reflective entries, you can count these as CPD as well. You may want to do that. OK, so past appraisals. So please do include your past appraisals if you can. At least one year before. So if you're an FY3, then FY2 ARCP is helpful. It's not absolutely compulsory, but it is helpful if you're in the middle of a revalidation cycle. You know, you don't have to include the last three appraisals, but at least the last one is important. We always review the previous year's PDP during the appraisal, so it's important that that's available for me to be able to have a look at. Okay, so personal and professional wellbeing. So again, a reflective area. You can talk about any issues that you want to bring up in a supportive way during the appraisal. So if you have had anything that's happened that's been adverse during the year from a health perspective, You know, that'd be physical health or mental health, what maybe there's some life event that's going on, you know, feel free to declare it in this area. Equally, there's no obligation to do so. In my appraisal practice, if you do declare something, you know, I'm going to approach that in a supportive way. I'm not looking to collect evidence against you or anything like that. I am just looking to support you during the appraisal. And so yeah, feel free to declare that in a confidential way. And it's good to, you know, we'll ask you like, where you are out of 10. So that's always gives a good kind of quantitative measure of this. As I say, there's some reflective areas to think about here as well. And then there is a work leisure balance form. You know, again, that's optional. It can add more details, so feel free to do that if you like. OK, probity, this needs to be done. It's a key declaration. So it's basically saying that you accept obligations placed under good medical practice, and then it gives an option, is there anything that you need to declare around suspension or restrictions? Medical indemnity, please do upload your MPS or MDU or other medical indemnity certificate. This does add to the appraisal. This is like a core thing that appraisers will comment on during the appraisal report. So if you do have cover, then please do upload it. OK, challenges, achievements and aspirations. Again, another reflective area. Important to fill this in. Again, you can see, you know, in my own example, like I've not put extensive detail, but it just gives an idea of like what. What during the year was challenging? What have been the key achievements? And what are your plans for next year? Okay. And then additional information. So things that I would really like to see in here if possible, please do include a CV. That's very helpful for me framing where you are in your medical career. And then if you do have references that are available to you, then please do include them. I know that that's often not possible. Often they're kind of confidential. Agencies as well, and NHS banks don't really like to share them. If you do have copies of them, then great. If you don't, then it's not a compulsory part of the appraisal. Yeah. Okay, so that's the general information section.

Continuing professional development (CPD)
Okay, the next box is keeping up to date, just two sections, keeping up to date and CPD. So it's worth saying that this type of appraisal, outside training, is quite different to ARCP. Here we're just trying to demonstrate that we've kept our knowledge and skills up to date, and this section is very relevant therefore. In ARCP, we're showing that we've made a large kind of leap in our progress between, say, ST3 and ST4 or FY1 and FY2. So this is, as I say, reflective. There's three questions. What have you done to keep up to date? What are the most significant things you've learned? And what learning needs have you identified? So let's just say you're in FY3. You know, your answer here might be, I've done the CPD, I've done patient or colleague feedback, I've done an audit. You know, what is the most significant things you've learned? You may say, I've learned more about acute medical conditions. I feel more confident in managing acutely unwell patients. You may say, I've developed knowledge around a specialist area that you're thinking of doing. You know, maybe that's anaesthetics, maybe it's dermatology, et cetera. You know, it's about sharing what you've learned really in the year previously. And what learning needs have you identified? So, you know, maybe you've done a master's in dermatology, for example, and your learning need is that you now need to apply that academic knowledge to clinical practice. You know, these are just a few examples, but it gives you an idea of where you need to go with this. Again, you know, it doesn't have to be really extensive, just needs to give enough points really to discuss in the appraisal itself. OK, CPD. So this is the major section of the appraisal, the workhorse of the appraisal. It is maybe equivalent to doing work-based assessments in FY1 and FY2. So this is a section that you need to do a good job of. Now, having said that, you can just see that all I've uploaded here is mandatory training. Now, that isn't sufficient. Your mandatory training is not your CPD. CPD needs to include 50 hours or 50 points, one hour, one point. And the best CPD portfolios show a range of different things, different activities that you've done. OK, so this might include cases that you found interesting. It might include mortality, morbidity meetings. It might include MDTs, departmental teaching. Grand Rounds. But also may include webinars, podcasts, external conferences, courses. It may include question banks that you've done questions from for the MSRA or other exams. But just a few notes here. So your mandatory training capped at 10 points, not with the first 10 points of the 50. Now, even if you've done 30 hours worth of modules, it's still 10 points. And similarly, for question banks, even if you've done 3,000 questions, I personally, in my appraisal practice, would cap that at 10 points. So we want to see a range of different things that you've done. And I think it's worth also saying that, you know, things that you've done clinically can definitely be demonstrated in CPD. For example, you know, a mortality and morbidity meeting is a clinical event, you know, but the learning that covers from it is demonstrated In your reflection, really. So I would be very happy if you included, you know, the date of an MDT and what you learned from it. So it's that documentation of drawing out, you know, the learning points, the reflection from these events. So what you can't do is, you know, maybe you've done a clinical attachment, maybe you've done a taster week, or maybe you've done an observership. You know, uploading a certificate that you've been to a taster week or an observership is kind of useless. Like that is, that belongs in the scope of work section. So you need to draw out the learning. You need to make it obvious for the appraiser to understand what you've learned from those clinical events. A lot of doctors will struggle to get the 50 points, and it's not uncommon to top that up with online learning. For example, BMJ online learning is a commonly used resource. And that's fine. You know, I understand that it's not always easy to get lots of internal CPD points from, from locuming. You know, maybe you don't get to go to formal teaching. Maybe you don't get to go to grand round. I understand that. Um, but this section really is about demonstrating a range of different things that you've done, uh, contributing to your CPD for that year. And if you've done, you know, if you've done like formal qualifications, like a master's, you know, again, like that's great. And that obviously counts as CPD, same for like a postgraduate certificate of any description, but please do in the CPD section, demonstrate how that... Contribute to CPD. So for a master's, like, please include a list of all the teaching sessions you've been to, like, timetables, for example, assignments that you've done, the same for postgraduate certificate. So, unfortunately, you know, this section is, it can be a bit tiresome, but it's about delineating and making obvious exactly what you've done. I'm just going to quick look at this form. So this is CPD form. So title, date of learning. Learning points and reflection and hours and credits. So you can see, and then you can say which part of your scope of work it's appropriate to. So CPD should cover your entire scope of work. So that might just be one thing, but it might be four things. So for example, when I do my appraisal, I have to demonstrate I've done learning around appraisal myself, around expert witness work, around my consultant work as well, so including all things. And in terms of like reflecting on this, so you don't have to reflect on every element of your CPD. Like if you've done a module on hyponatraemia, you know, there might not be loads and loads of reflection from that. You've reviewed hyponatraemia, you know, what medications to stop and the cause of hyponatraemia. So you don't have to write extensive reflection. But for example, if you're listing a mortality, morbidity meeting or an MDT, you know, that is where you need to reflect, like simply attending. What does that tell you? Not a lot. You know, you just need to know, well, actually, within this mortality and morbidity meeting, we explored, you know, three mortality events, and I learned this from them. And I have made a note to review this in my practice. You know, that's the kind of reflection we want from areas that are less self-explanatory. You know, similarly, as I've mentioned, if you do have, like, formal qualifications like... Like, postgraduate certificates. And again, please, please demonstrate what you've learned, etc. And again, you know, in this section, just a few other things to say, you might not have loads and loads of different entries here, you know, your CPD might be three substantial different things, that's fine. Equally, it might be 70 entries, you know, it might be that you've done 30 online modules, and you've done 20 reflections, and you've done You know, whatever else. So the number of entries isn't important. It's more the substance and reflection you've drawn from each entry. Okay, so that's the CPD section and that's it for keeping up to date.

Review of practice and quality improvement
Okay, so the next section is the review of practice, three subsections, the review of your practice, the quality improvement activity and significant events. So the first subsection is a reflective subsection. And again, it is a chance to think about the year that's gone, about what's gone well, and how things could be better and how they could be further improved in the years going forward. Again, You know, this doesn't need to be really extensive. Three or four lines in each of these questions is fine. You know, it might be a case that you want to, you know, you felt that you've improved your confidence massively as an SHO, but there are procedures that you don't feel as confident with that you want to progress in the years ahead. Maybe you feel that your communication skills could be better and you want to, you know, hone in those over the year ahead. So it's good to think about Your practice critically, what went well, how are you going to improve, and put that into a short structured reflection in this section. Okay, the next section is the quality improvement activity. So quite an important section, this one. Between CPD and QIA, that is the workhorse of the appraisal. These two sections need to be done well. A few notes, really. So the QIA, so it's a quality improvement activity. It's not a quality improvement project per se, although if you have done a quality improvement project, you can include it in this section. So the QIA is simply something that you've done during the year to improve your practice. Now, you could have done a QIA, a QIP, as I mentioned, you could do an audit. It doesn't have to be a massive departmental audit. It could be very simple, 20 or 30 patients where you've Identify an issue, collect some data and reflect on the feedback. It could be teaching that you've done a teaching session and feedback. It could be case-based discussions, two or three interesting cases discussed with a registrar or consultant and written up on a pro forma. It could be review of a guideline. What is important to state here is that the actual form within Improval Is quite brief, title, description, reflection and credits. Is brief, but this section is important and it does ideally need to include some evidence. So just going to the form again, although there's a credit section, you can't count things twice. So if you've got something in the QIA section, you can't count it in the CPD section. Unless, for example, you've done an audit and then you've reflected on the audit, you could include the reflection in the CPD. Again, in this section, it's good to include some evidence. So, you know, for example, case-based discussions written up on a pro forma. If you've done an audit, please include the pro forma that you've filled in, anonymised data, presentations. Similarly, if you've done a teaching, the PowerPoint presentation you delivered, or feedback. If you've done a guideline review, then the guideline and your critical appraisal of that guideline. Now, I ideally want to see Some evidence that you've kind of documented really in this section. As I say, it is one of the two really important sections. So do reflect as well in this section, more so than any other section on your QIA, and be prepared to discuss what you've done, what you've learned, and how it's influenced your practice. Okay, so the next section is significant events. So... If you have been involved in a significant event, don't be concerned about declaring it here. In nearly all but a very few number of cases, a significant event would be dealt with within the appraisal discussion and it would go no further. The only times around how to refer something to the responsible officer would be like a serious professional issue or if... The act was like so negligent, it was kind of bordering on a criminal act and that sort of thing. So in all but very few cases, the incident is discussed, we're reflecting it together, and we bring out the learning points. And if necessary, that those learning points could be incorporated into the personal development plan. So what I'm trying to drive out here is you don't need to be concerned about declaring things. Again, in the form here, this form is fairly simple. Okay, so description, reflection, credits. Credits is obviously less relevant, but if you are involved in a significant event, please write some written reflection. We will reflect together in the appraisal meeting itself, but please do document something at least. Also worth saying that in terms of significant events, a lot of people do... Have some level of confusion about what a significant event is. So that is normally classified by the person reviewing the data and it's normally a senior person. But, you know, it's not someone taking you aside and saying something slightly adverse happened. You know, for this to be in this section, from in my appraisal practice, at least, you know, it must be in writing, you must be notified. Or it could be verbally, but you would have to be asked to declare it as a significant event verbally in your appraisal itself. So for example, a lot of people feel that if something was referred to the coroner, that's a significant event. It isn't necessarily. So you should have been told by somebody senior that it was a significant event and that it needs to be discussed. And that could be a consultant, medical director, it could be a manager, but just bear that in mind in this section.

Patient and colleague feedback
So the next section is feedback on your practice. So five areas here, learning from feedback, colleague feedback, patient feedback, compliments and complaints. Let's just have a look at complaints first. Okay, so goes along really with significant events, some of the same themes. Again, if you have been involved in a complaint, don't worry about declaring it. Please do fill in the form. Please do provide some reflection and we will, in all but very few cases, in 99.9% of cases, we will discuss the complaint, we'll talk about what you've learned from it and if there are any learning points to take forward within the appraisal meeting itself. So don't worry about it, feel free to declare things. It's a safe space in terms of the appraisal itself. A lot of complaints do come through that I don't think really meet the criteria. So in order to actually declare something in this area or need to declare something in this area, I generally say it needs to have been in writing. So somebody can't just complain about you a bit on the ward. You know, that's almost a daily occurrence in some areas. There needs to be a formal written complaint from a patient. It needs to have gone to somebody senior like a consultant or medical director or a manager, and they need to notify you in writing for it to be classified in this section. So just bear that in mind. Again, the important thing is to reflect on it and think about how things could be done differently maybe next time. So again, don't worry, we can discuss this during the appraisal itself. OK, so as I say, some of this section is Optional. So within a revalidation cycle, the five year revalidation cycle, you do need to do 34 patients in terms of feedback and 15 colleagues in terms of feedback. Obviously, there's functions in Improval, as stated earlier, to collect this feedback. You can also do paper-based forms and you can collect the feedback together from the feedback section to collect it here, or you could upload evidence. You know, paper-based forms, et cetera. And again, you know, you can reflect on this as well when you upload these files. Same with colleague feedback. The important thing here, though, is there is no requirement to upload any patient, colleague, feedback, or even any compliments within any given appraisal year. The requirement is during the whole revalidation cycle. So 34 patients, 15 colleagues across the five years. And you could choose to Do 34 patients and 15 colleagues in your last year of your revalidation cycle, and that's perfectly acceptable. You may do a few patients and a few colleagues every year. That's completely up to you. But it's just to say, these sections are optional. And if you are locuming, if you are outside of a permanent job, then it's very reasonable to say, well, it's quite hard to collect feedback now. It's not as valuable as it would be if I had the continuity. Of care, as I would in a permanent role, so I'm going to collect it later. So you may not do this in your FY3 appraisal, for example. In fact, I would say most people don't. That being said, you may have informal feedback, like thank you cards, or you may have done like some other exercise that's informal. Feel free to attach that. And then the learning from feedback section. Feeds into what you've done, really. So you may have done some formal, you may have done some informal feedback, and then this is the section to reflect on it. So again, some questions here. So you may have done, you may have no formal feedback, you may have no informal feedback, and this may just be a purely kind of reflective section. And you may just say, well, how do I feel that my practice is Perceived by colleagues, perceived by patients, and that's perfectly fine as well. So just like the other sections, some questions to prompt some reflection. Again, doesn't need to be too extensive, and we can pick up on this within the appraisal meeting itself.

Your personal development plan (PDP)
So finally we come to the personal development plan. So this is three or four goals for the year ahead that you want to undertake. It's the final part of the appraisal meeting as well. And it has to be agreed between the appraiser and the appraisee. Both parties have to agree on those goals. So it's a collaboration. So this section here really is for you to jot down some ideas, what you think your development goals are for the year ahead. It should be things that you genuinely want to work on. There's been a bit of a tendency for these to be quite tick boxy type activities. You know, for example, I want to do 50 points of CPD for the year ahead. That's not a very valuable goal because it's a requirement of the appraisal anyway. So try and aim for goals where you genuinely want to make progress. So that could be a course that you want to go on. It could be applying for IMT or core surgical training. It could be exams. It could be the MSRA. So do try and Set goals that are useful for you. Within this section then, there's, again, it's ideas that you will set for yourself. You can see these individual targets that I've set for myself. This one's about medico-legal report writing. But it'll ask you what I want to achieve, how I want to achieve this, and how I intend to demonstrate success. So try not to be too emphatic about getting this right. They are ideas. And as the appraiser, anyway, part of the post appraisal support is writing up these goals. So I will write these goals formally, just to be clear. And I have to write these up into six different sections in terms of Improval documentation. So because they have to be written up formally by the appraiser, there's not that much point spending loads and loads of time on getting these absolutely perfect. They're ideas, that should be discussed in the appraisal meeting itself, ultimately. Okay, so that is the appraisal for a few final notes then. So when you get to this section and you've completed this section, you're kind of at the end of the form. If you've given me early access, it's then worth notifying me and letting me have a look through the appraisal, making sure that I think as the appraiser that everything is there and we're ready to have the meeting itself. So please do that before you submit the appraisal. Appraisal is submitted. By clicking sign off. So that's that should be done before the Teams meeting itself. And then it's a case of progressing to the Teams meeting and discussing all the evidence that you've documented. OK, so that is a brief run through of everything in appraisal. Hopefully that gives you a really clear idea of everything you need to do and upload for the appraisal meeting itself.