Some key principles of appraisal in Wales are:
- To provide individuals with an opportunity to reflect on their practice and their approach to medicine; reflect on the supporting information they have gathered and what that information demonstrates about their practice; identify areas of practice where they could make improvements or undertake further development; demonstrate that they are up to date
- To provide opportunities for communication between doctors and the organisations in which they work relating to skills, capacity, organisational level objectives, constraints & learning needs
- To provide assurances to the organisation/s that doctors are remaining up to date across their whole practice
- To provide a route to revalidation that builds on and strengthens existing systems with minimum bureaucracy
Appraisal is a regular and systematic review of past achievements with the view to plan future learning needs. It should be viewed as a continual process of personal and professional development. It should be thought of as an opportunity for doctors to gather information about the full scope of their own practice and what that demonstrates, reflect on their approach to their work, identify improvements that could be made and show how they might further develop.