Model Local Agreement for Clinical Excellence Awards (Ceas)

Model local agreement for Clinical Excellence Awards (CEAs)

This model agreement should be considered in line with any local agreements that are in place and amended as necessary.

The annual local CEA process is governed by four documents. Each of these documents must be read by those applying for CEAs and by the members of the Local Awards Committee.

The guides to the scheme from the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards, available on their web site at ACCEA publishes a guide to the scheme and frequently-asked questions, both available from this link.
The application forms are available on the ACCEA’s website and no other form can be accepted.
The local agreement made in the Medical Negotiating Committee. This is available from the medical staffing department and is circulated with the invitation to apply for a CEA and to members of the LAC. The local agreement details the local application of the national scheme.
The local guide to completing and marking applications. This is available from the medical staffing department and is circulated with the invitation to apply for a CEA and to members of the LAC. The local guide assures a consistent and coherent approach to the annual process.

1.General principles on the allocation and spread of points

1.1.The local application of the clinical excellence awards scheme will be applied in line with ‘The new NHS consultant reward scheme: clinical excellence awards’ (Department of Health, August 2003) and the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards’ (ACCEA) guidance.

1.2.This agreement covers only the application of the local element of the Clinical Excellence Awards scheme. Local awards can be made at levels 1-9 of the scheme at values set out annually by the Doctors and Dentists Review Body. Eligible consultants are in addition eligible to receive CEAs awarded by the ACCEA and its subcommittees at levels 9 (bronze), 10 (silver), 11 (gold) and 12 (platinum). Consultants are advised to refer to the ACCEA’s guide on the scheme at the web site listed above, for further details.

1.3.Each year the trust will determine, following consultation with the Local Negotiating Committee (LNC) the overall number of CEAs to be awarded by the Employer Based Awards Committee (EBAC) with effect from the following 1 April. The minimum number of CEAs that the Trust will award is 0.35 per eligible consultant. All consultants with one year of service are counted as eligible consultants with part-time consultants counted as their whole-time equivalent. For the sake of clarity, this includes all current discretionary point holders, distinction award holders and future national CEA award holders.

1.4.Part-time consultants will be eligible for awards but the value of their award will be pro-rata to their whole-time equivalent.

1.5.CEAs will not be awarded other than through the procedures laid out here. Where a consultant transfers from another trust with CEAs these will be continued and are not new awards under this policy.

1.6.Consultants can be awarded any level of CEA up to nine, as deemed appropriate by the EBAC. Particular consideration will be given to making multiple awards to consultants currently in receipt of discretionary points, given that the value of those discretionary points will be between levels of CEAs. For individual transition from the Discretionary Point scheme to CEAs, the minimum award will be one full CEA value.

1.7.The EBAC will liaise with the regional ACCEA subcommittee regarding consultants towards the top of the local CEA scale. Where the EBAC decision on awards precedes that of the national ACCEA, the EBAC awards will be reviewed to consider whether any consultants given awards locally have also received national awards. If there are any such consultants, the local award(s) made during that year may be reallocated with backdating (see paragraph 7.12).

1.8.The trust and the LNC will review this agreement annually in the light of experience and taking into account guidance from the Department of Health, ACCEA or BMA. Any changes will only be made with the full agreement of the LNC.

2.Eligible consultants

2.1.The eligibility criteria outlined in the ACCEA’s guidance are those applied locally. Substantive consultants are eligible irrespective of the contract they are employed under.

2.2.The trust will provide a list of all eligible consultants (all of those with at least one year of service) for discussion and agreement with the LNC. The number of eligible consultants multiplied by the agreed figure in paragraph 1.3 will determine the minimum number of awards under the scheme each year.

2.3.A list of eligible consultants will be given to the chairman of the Senior Hospital Medical Staffs Committee (SHMSC) to encourage consultants to apply.

3.Criteria

3.1.The criteria to be used for the local implementation of the scheme are detailed in the ACCEA’s guide to the scheme. Consultants should read the guide for further details. No other criteria will be applied to the consideration of CEAs.

3.2.The format of application forms will be as set out by the ACCEA in Form A. An appropriate scoring system will be agreed between the trust and the LNC and reviewed each year in the light of national guidance. It is agreed that the scoring system must be demonstrably objective and clearly based on the above-mentioned criteria. The scoring system and weightings shall be agreed between the trust and the LNC with an emphasis in the local scheme on rewarding contribution within the trust. For the current year of the scheme the scoring system is as follows:

Domain area / Weighting
1. Delivering a high quality service. / 2.5
2. Developing a high quality service. / 2.0
3. Managing a high quality service. / 1.5
4. Research and innovation. / 1.0
5. Teaching and training. / 1.5

4.Application procedure

4.1.A local timetable will be agreed with the LNC that will allow payment of awards to be received by successful applicants in the April payslip at the start of the awards year.

4.2.The EBAC secretary will invite all eligible consultants to apply for CEAs using the ACCEA application form. Invitations will be circulated by email to trust email addresses, with a short note announcing the existence of the email circulated on paper by the trust internal mail system. The invitation will include a copy of this agreement with all of the appropriate criteria, the application form with notes for completion, the qualifying date for attaining consultant status and an explanation that those consultants who received more than one CEA in the previous year will not be considered for an award in this round (see paragraph 2.3.1). There will be a time limit for the completion and return of the application form; eligible consultants will be sent an email reminder seven days in advance of the closing date for applications. The application form must be returned by email as a Word attachment containing the completed ACCEA form. Forms not returned by email will not be accepted. Late entries will not be accepted.

4.3.Each applicant will be advised of their application reference number so that this can be cross-referenced to documentation later.

4.4.The employer will not submit citations for any candidates applying for local awards. Nor will nominating citations from third parties be referred to during the EBAC’s deliberations.

5.Employer Based Awards Committee (EBAC)

5.1.The function of the EBAC is to take the annual decision as to which consultants will receive local CEAs. The EBAC will base its decisions on the criteria laid down in the ACCEA’s guide to the scheme. The points scoring system agreed with the LNC will be strictly adhered to by the EBAC.

5.2.The EBAC will be constituted in adherence with the ACCEA’s guidelines which state that the EBAC should be contain:

A minimum of 12 members
Half of the members should be consultants
A quarter should be employer representatives
Three should be lay members (one from outside the trust)
University teaching hospitals should have a representative of the university
Consultant members should represent the diversity of the consultant body.
Consultant members should include at least one non-award holder.
Members of the committee cannot be applicants for Employer Based Awards.
The process for nominating consultant members of the EBAC shall be agreed between and managed in line with ACCEA’s guidance. Through the process, the consultant body should give due regard to the balance across the body of consultants of specialty, ethnicity and gender to ensure that individuals in such groups are not seen to be disadvantaged in the awards process. The consultant members shall include at least one consultant holding an honorary contract if possible. Nominated consultant members shall not be considered for awards in the year of membership.
Members of the national ACCEA and its regional subcommittee will be eligible to attend meetings of the EBAC in an observer capacity.
The EBAC secretary’s duties are as follows.

To advise the EBAC of the total number of awards available each year.
To advise the EBAC of the number and names of eligible consultants.
To be responsible for convening the meetings.
To be responsible for an equal opportunities analysis and its circulation.
To be responsible for keeping the records of all scores and raw score sheets.
To be responsible for keeping full minutes of all the meetings, together with a list of those attending.
To convey the results of the EBAC's deliberations to all consultants who have applied.
To convene and manage the appeals process.
To advise the Board of the decisions of the EBAC and the results of any appeals decisions.
Members of the EBAC will not give advice to potential applicants once the application process has started in any one year.
The deliberations of the EBAC will be based solely on the contents of the application forms.
Full minutes, scoring and ranking records must be maintained, and released, anonymised and highlighted to individuals on request.
The EBAC will be quorate with at least 75% of the full membership in attendance. The committee will be inquorate if there is not a majority of consultants present. The trust will ensure that consultant members of the EBAC are not prevented from attending these meetings by other trust duties except in the case of a clinical emergency that cannot be managed by any other consultant.
Decisions will be made by reference to the scoring process. In the case of an equality of scores, the EBAC will consider the applications in the light of all the information contained in the application forms. In the event that the EBAC does not reach a consensus, the chairman shall have a deciding role.
Each year the EBAC will review the names of all eligible consultants who have not received awards in the previous ten years to ensure that there are bona fide reasons for non-receipt of awards.
Appropriate guidance and training regarding the process and equal opportunities will be given to each member of the EBAC.

6.Consultants under investigation

6.1.Consultants who are under investigation may apply in the normal way for CEAs whether or not the process is internal or external (e.g. GMC, NICE or Police Authority).

6.2.If a consultant who is the subject of a formal investigation or disciplinary process chooses to submit an application for CEAs, the application will be scored in the usual way. Should that consultant following the scoring process be granted an award, that award will be withheld until such time as the formal investigation or disciplinary process is completed and will be informed of this by the EBAC secretary as soon as practicable. Neither the fact nor the details of the disciplinary concern or investigation will be disclosed to the EBAC.

6.3.Following completion of the formal investigation or disciplinary process, the award will either be made if no disciplinary action is taken or may be withheld if disciplinary action is taken or while a warning is extant. Withheld awards will be put forward to a subsequent round once the warning has lapsed. The fact that an award has been withheld will be disclosed to the LNC chairman so that the next year’s allocation may be properly verified. If the award is not made to the individual, it will be reallocated retrospectively with backdating.

7.Annual process

7.1.The EBAC secretary will convene an initial meeting to set the agenda for the detailed process. The methodology of the scoring process including the target allocations (see below) shall be discussed at the initial meeting of the EBAC in order to reach a uniform approach.

7.2.All of the members of the EBAC will be given the applications for consideration with the equal opportunities monitoring sheet removed. The applications will not be anonymised.

7.3.Each individual member of the committee (scoring members) will independently score each of the applications (by allocating a score to each of the domains) and forward these raw scores to the EBAC secretary who will be responsible for collating the information for the next meeting of the EBAC.

7.4.Scorers will consider each application for scoring along with the local guide to completion and marking of forms.

7.5.The EBAC secretary will also provide an equal opportunity analysis across the applications, including for specialty and whether the applicant holds an academic post.

7.6.Awards will be allocated according to an objective formula that recognises the ceiling quota in the scheme. Scores will be aggregated to give a weighted total for each applicant; the weighted totals will be ranked in descending order. The number of consultants receiving awards shall be determined so as to achieve the following allocations in the final distribution.

Awards made to applicant / Proportion of total awards in each class
4 / 25%
3 / 35%
2 / 25%
1 / 15%

7.7.The table above refers to awards, not applicants. The proportion of applicants receiving each number of awards depends upon the numbers of eligible consultants and applicants.

7.8.The allocations are made by descending the rank table and allocating awards to applicants from the highest class remaining, to the maximum that consultant can receive. If the EBAC determines that the target allocations produce unacceptable distortions then the proportions may be varied so long as an explicit record is kept of the reasons that this is done.

7.9.On completion of the collation and analysis the secretary of the EBAC will reconvene the meeting to decide the allocation of awards to the applicants. The secretary will keep a full record of the allocations. The secretary of the LAC will write to all applicants as soon as possible after the decision informing them of the allocation. In the letter the EBAC secretary will detail the process to be followed in the event of an appeal.

7.10.Following the allocation of awards the EBAC shall hold a final meeting, no later than two months from the date of the allocation meeting, to review the process for the current year. At this meeting the equal opportunity analysis will be provided having been updated to analyse for success and failure in awards. This information and the result of the review will be passed to the LNC to enable a review of the whole process to be undertaken.

7.11.The local process shall be completed by the April payroll.

7.12.National level awards will be notified in October, with pay backdated to April. It is possible for consultants receiving local awards to find later that they have received a national award. Where this happens, the EBAC may determine that any local awards granted to such consultants will be recycled and awarded with backdating to other candidates, in order to maintain the local value of the CEA scheme.

7.13.The EBAC secretary will provide formal feedback to individual applicants after the award process has been completed. This will be anonymised, will refer to the scoring process and will take the form of a graphical representation of the distribution of the scores, with the candidate’s position marked thereon. The applicants will be given their code number to refer to the information report.

7.14.The EBAC secretary will publish each year an information report containing the equal opportunities analysis detailed in paragraph 7.5.

8.Appeal arrangements

8.1.A consultant who believes that the awards process has not been carried out fairly has the right to appeal to the EBAC secretary within one month from the date of receiving the results of the allocation of CEAs. Late applications will not normally be considered unless the applicant can show good reason for the delay, and it would be inequitable for the appeal not to proceed. The EBAC secretary will be responsible for setting up the appeal. Prospective appellants may seek advice on an informal basis from the chairmen of the LNC or the Medical Staff Committee prior to lodging an appeal. Any such consultation will be confidential and will not affect the time scale.