Through upgrading Appraisal Toolkit, we have produced a more streamlined and easy to use system that combines all of the benefits of the previous version of Appraisal Toolkit with a number of new features to allow an even more simple and stress-free appraisal process.
None of your information will be lost during the Appraisal Toolkit upgrade. All of your appraisal evidence, personal information and uploaded documents will still be present on the upgraded system, but they may have been relocated to new areas of Appraisal Toolkit. This guide will give you a brief introduction to the changes we have made to Appraisal Toolkit, and tell you:

• Which sections have been renamed or moved
• Where you can find your information

Click here for a quick overview of where to find your information.

Professional Profile

The Professional Profile still contains Personal Information and Posts and Roles (which has been renamed "Roles"), but it now includes Minor surgery logs (primary care only) and Surgical logs (secondary care only). In addition, any information added to Professional Profile is automatically added to Forms 1 and 2 of an appraisal to avoid the laborious process of repeatedly entering the same data.  

Portfolio

The Portfolio has been redesigned to display the GMC's evidence categories, keeping all of your Appraisal Evidence in one place and allowing easy addition and import into Form 3 of an appraisal.
Changes to the Portfolio include:

• Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Events –This has been updated to incorporate the Mandatory Training section that used to be part of Governance, allowing you to keep all items regarding CPD together.

• Quality Improvement Activities – This newly added section combines your Academic activities (now renamed "Research and Teaching Activities"), Case Reviews, Clinical Audits, Morbidity & Mortality Meetings (secondary care only), Practice Development, PUNs & DENs (primary care only) and the newly added, secondary care specific "Workplace Activities" to form an easy-to-review section that includes all evidence that has been added that reflects Quality Improvement.

• Complaints and Accolades have also moved to be part of the Portfolio in keeping with the GMC's evidence categories.

Personal Development Plans

Changes have been made to the PDP section of Appraisal Toolkit in order to simplify the appraisal process.

• Current PDP – Before you begin a new appraisal, these are the PDP items that were agreed on during your previous appraisal that you are currently working towards.
• Last Year's PDP –Within a new appraisal, the Current PDP items you were working on will be displayed as Last Year's PDP items.
• Proposed PDP - You can now suggest PDP items for an appraiser to consider before your appraisal meeting. After the meeting, the appraiser can accept or reject these suggestions with the click of a button.
• Agreed PDP – These are the items that have been agreed between appraiser and clinician during the appraisal meeting.

The New Streamlined Appraisal

Form 3 of the appraisal now incorporates sections that used to be part of Form 4, including Additional Areas of Discussion (Discussion Topics), Pre-Appraisal Preparation (GMP Statement) and Declarations. Health, Convictions and Probity issues are also now all covered in the Declarations section of an appraisal, reducing the number of pages required to complete before an appraisal can be submitted.
All outputs from your appraisal can now be found in Form 4, which has been condensed and is now specifically for use by your appraiser. Before signing off your appraisal you will be able to review all of the appraisal outputs, and if there are any problems you would like to highlight, you can bring them to the attention of your Responsible Officer by adding an explanatory statement before your sign-off.

 For more information about the new appraisal format, click here.

Reflection

Good Medical Practice requires you to reflect on your practice and whether you are working to the relevant standards.

Appraisal Toolkit includes space to reflect on individual evidence items within an appraisal and on entire evidence sections.

If you reflected on an individual item in your portfolio before September 2012, the information will be included in the section reflection box once the item has been imported into an appraisal. You can also view the reflection in your portfolio. For more information, click here.