Members in England and Wales

Dear ASGBI Member

Clinical Excellence Awards – 2011 round – England & Wales

I write to let you know the process that ASGBI will be adopting for the 2011 Clinical Excellence Awards round. We will follow the same process as last year, with one or two developments in line with the ACCEA recommendations and the aspirations of the ASGBI and its constituent specialties for its members.

The first decision for anyone wishing to apply is whether or not to involve an organisation, which is registered to nominate. In essence these are the Royal College(s) and specialty association(s). Individual applications are perfectly in order but applicants are strongly advised, by the ACCEA, to seek the support of such a body or bodies. The ranking lists and citations which our organisations supply are considered to be important supplements to the evidence contained in the applications.

To enable us to complete our task, we need members’ ACCEA Application Forms to reach us no later than 9.00am on Monday 23rd August 2010. Any applications received after this time will not be considered by the ASGBI Nominations Committee. The application forms should be emailed as an attachment to smercer@asgbi.org.uk

As for last year, the responsibility for the actual submission of the application to ACCEA will rest firmly with the applicant and will be on-line at www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/accea. The deadline for submission to the ACCEA is 5.00pm on Friday 10th December 2010.

This year, the ACCEA is aiming to publish the successful applicants for the 2010 round at the beginning of August 2010. Hopefully, this will mean that those who applied in the 2010 will not have to submit an application to us unless they know they were unsuccessful in the 2010 round. However, should the results be delayed, please submit an updated application to us and we will sift out any successful applications once the results have been announced.

The ASGBI Nominations Committee Meeting will take place on Monday 6th September 2010 and our ranking/scores will be disseminated to the Colleges and other relevant professional bodies as well as directly to the ACCEA. To ensure that achievements are not overlooked it is essential that applications are reviewed by as many relevant organisations as possible. This ensures that good applications do not fail for want of an effective advocate, and also that there is a good degree of consistency in the information that the national awards committee eventually receives.

The Association is registered as a Specialty Society and under the current rules can submit 12 nominations for Bronze, 5 Silver and 4 Gold. The Association committee comprises representatives from our constituent specialty associations.

A few other important points from previous experience, which may be helpful to those compiling their applications for submission. These should be taken together with the excellent guides on the ACCEA website:

Especially for Bronze level awards, it is pivotal that there are no large gaps in the form. I have no inside knowledge of next year’s form, but the headings contained within it will form the basis of the scoring exercise carried out independently by the committee members. Try to apportion achievements across all the sections. I appreciate that it can be difficult but duplication of information across these headings does not go down well and conversely blank spaces do not help committee members to support you.
It is possible to achieve awards at National level for Bronze even if you have not attracted much support at local Trust level in the way of discretionary points, providing that you have a sufficiently strong regional and national profile.
When completing the first sections of the CV, it is very helpful if objective evidence, for example some figures, are provided. Be accurate and do not over or understate your achievements.
Please consult the ACCEA website and follow the instructions carefully. The Guides to applicants and to assessors, etc. are very clear and well written.
It is an open process, so why not ask a suitable colleague to review your CV for mistakes, omissions and improvements?
As for job applications, anything that enables the reader to glean the information easily from the form will be helpful. Bullet pointed, succinct sentences where possible are one way of achieving this.

The Management/Leadership form was introduced in the 2009 round. Please note the following:

Bronze or Silver candidates may choose to submit ONE of the supplementary forms below with their application form.
Gold candidates may choose to submit up to TWO of the forms below
Platinum candidates may choose to submit up to ALL THREE of the forms below
- Research/Innovation
- Teaching/Training
- Management/Leadership
Should a candidate choose to submit a supplementary form, the corresponding domain in the application form must be left blank.

We had a very helpful session at the recent ASGBI International Surgical Congress in Liverpool and the presentation can be downloaded by clicking here. It may be worth having a look at this and I have to say the ACCEA website is extremely good.

I hope that this is helpful,

Yours sincerely,

d_wilkins_sig