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Notice from the ACCIA, March 2022

Dear colleague

As you know, ACCEA is reforming its national award scheme in 2022.  Our plans have primarily been informed by recommendations from the DDRB, a range of formal and informal stakeholder processes conducted during 2020/21 , and most importantly by a formal government consultation conducted last year. Thanks to the many of you who participated in that process, the detailed results of which have been recently been published (see link- Reforming-the-national-clinical-excellence-awards-scheme).  Our name has been changed to ‘Advisory Committee on Clinical Impact Awards (ACCIA).

As many of you will be aware, and as we discussed recently at our on-line review meeting for National Nominating Bodies and Specialist Societies, we are implementing  several important changes to the categorisation and role of these bodies in the reformed ACCIA scheme:

  1. We are removing the distinction between ‘National Nominating Bodies’ and ‘Specialist Societies’ as supporting bodies (which many feel implies a hierarchy of importance).  All will be termed ‘National Nominating’ Organisations (NNOs) from now on.
     
  2. Following our systematic audit of NNOs in 2021, and a careful review of the roles of the large numbers of organisations who have historically been involved in nomination and citation processes (many of which have supported very few, or in some cases no applicants in recent years), we have reduced the number of recognised NNOs and overall number of ranking places, focusing primarily on those with wider roles in education, training and standard-setting. 
     
  3. We are formally notifying you that after careful consideration, to minimise duplication and increase equity, your organisation has not been accredited as an NNO. The list of accredited NNOs will be published shortly, with their allocated indicative numbers.  These numbers are based pro rata on current NHS-digital statistics which quantify consultant numbers in all specialities which has led to some adjustment to the numbers and proportions of places available.  In some cases there is more than one representative NNO per specialty.
     
  4. For your information, the process that will follow for accredited NNOs will be as below. This will be communicated in more detail in our guidance later this month.
     
  5. Applicants will be able to receive a ranking and citation from only one NNO.  An applicant should initially select either one or two from the accredited list, focusing on those organisations whom they feel will be best placed to corroborate the evidence provided on their application form. Membership of an NNO is not expected to be a pre requisite to seeking a nomination. We would expect NNOs to select whom they wish to support early in the application process and inform candidates accordingly.  An applicant may  be fortunate enough to be selected by both their chosen NNOs, in which case a choice will need to be made by that candidate.  In the case of ‘rejection’ by an applicant, the NNO may choose to draw on a ‘reserve’ list to obviate losing a nomination number.  No subsequent approaches to NNOs will be permitted.  Full details of the recommended processes will be provided later this month in ACCIA’s  ‘Guidance for NNO’s’.
     
  6. In the reformed scheme, the emphasis will be on ‘Impact’ specifically, and our expectation of an NNO citation is that it will focus on the wider impact of an applicant’s work to the NHS, and not their contribution to the Society, College or Association per se.

It should also be noted that Health Education England have agreed to serve as a National Nominating Organisation for the first time (subsuming CopMed), and that the Association of Medical Royal Colleges is now included as a primary NNO, having previously only been involved in Platinum awards.  We would anticipate that these, and indeed all accredited NNOs will wish to provide information (on the web or by other means) for potential applicants describing their processes and criteria for application and selection (including timing and their ‘target’ constituency, during the coming weeks).

The 2022 application round is currently scheduled to open in late April/early May, and full guidance documents for Applicants, NNOs, Employers and Scorers will be published shortly, as will simplified pdf/Word versions of the current application form to enable applicants to start work on their submissions to NNOs and in due course, ACCIA itself.

Kind Regards
ACCIA Secretariat