Appraisal for consultant medical staff

Abstract

There is a requirement that appraisal of consultants will have been introduced by all National Health Service (NHS) trusts from April 2001. The implication is that all consultants would have had their first annual appraisals by the end of March 2002. In this paper, the authors discuss the development of appraisal as a concept and the societal context in which it has arisen in medicine. They introduce the format for conducting appraisal within NHS trusts and discuss the likely benefits and possible limitations of appraisal.