ADMINISTRATOR: Appraisal Month Guidance

What to Do When the Due Date Is a Year Ahead of Where It Should Be

What to Do When the Due Date Is a Year Behind Where It Should Be

What to Do When a Doctor Starts After Their Appraisal Month Due Date

Introduction

In 2016 we introduced an Appraisal month-based method of Appraisal scheduling. Each doctor is expected to undertake an Appraisal in every Appraisal year (1st April to 31st March). Their due date for that Appraisal year will be the last day of their allocated Appraisal month. Should a doctor have an Appraisal later than their Appraisal due date (whether or not by agreement with their Responsible Officer), their next Appraisal should revert to their original Appraisal month.

For the majority of doctors on SARD, their Appraisal due date is straightforward. However, in certain cases, their due date can appear to be incorrect. Examples are:

when their Appraisal has been done late so falls into the next Appraisal year,
when their Appraisal has been done early so falls into the previous Appraisal year, or
when they are a new starter and they start after their Appraisal month for the current Appraisal year.

We will discuss what to do in these situations and how they can be avoided.

Calculating the Appraisal Due Date

First, some information on how the Appraisal due date is calculated on SARD.

By default, a doctor’s due date will be the last day of their allocated Appraisal month for every Appraisal year. For example, if their Appraisal month is January, their due date will be 31st January every year. For the 25/26 Appraisal year, it will be 31st January 2026; for the 26/27 Appraisal year, it will be 31st January 2027.
If the doctor has a completed Appraisal, their due date will be in their Appraisal month of the following Appraisal year. For example, if they completed an Appraisal in the 25/26 Appraisal year, their due date will be 31st January 2027.
If the doctor is exempt for an Appraisal year, their due date will be in their Appraisal month of the following Appraisal year. For example, if they are exempt for the 25/26 Appraisal year, their due date will be 31st January 2027.
If the doctor has an extension, their due date will be the extension due date. For example, if they are due on 31st January 2026, but have been granted a 2-month postponement, they will be due on 31st March 2027.
If the doctor has no complete Appraisals, exemptions or extensions but does have a start date, their due date will be in the Appraisal month of the Appraisal year in which they started. For example, if they started in December 2026, their due date would be 31st January 2027.
If the doctor has no complete Appraisals, exemptions, extensions or start date, then their due date will be in their next Appraisal month. N.B. This is not a good position to be in as the due date will always be in their upcoming Appraisal month. Any doctor in this situation will have "compliance unknown", so they are easy to find on the Appraisals Compliance Report page.

What to Do When the Due Date Is a Year Ahead of Where It Should Be

An Appraisal has been completed LATE and falls into the next Appraisal year (and so the due date is a year ahead of where it should be). To ‘pull back’ the Appraisal due date, extend the due date to the date of the Appraisal.

Example: Dr Carroll’s Appraisal month is February. For the 25/26 Appraisal year he was due on 28th February 2026. The late Appraisal actually took place on 30th April 2026 ,i.e., in the 26/27 Appraisal year. His due date is currently 28th February 2028, but it should be 28th February 2027:

To ‘pull back’ the Appraisal into the 25/26 Appraisal year, click on + Extend Due Date in the 25/26 Appraisal year row as above, and extend the 28th February 2026 due date to 30th April 2026:

Dr Carroll now has a due date of 28th February 2027:

To reduce the number of doctors that have a late Appraisal that takes place in the following Appraisal year, we recommend the number of doctors with an Appraisal month of March is kept to a minimum. Bespoke Appraisal reminders can be set up to encourage doctors to complete their Appraisals on time. It is also worth keeping a closer eye on doctors that do have a March Appraisal month. The Appraisal Months page (ADMIN > Medical Revalidation > Appraisals > Appraisal Months) can be useful for this. From this page you can click on any month and get compliance data for doctors that have that Appraisal month:

What to Do When the Due Date Is a Year Behind Where It Should Be

An Appraisal has been completed EARLY and falls in to the previous Appraisal year (and so the due date is a year behind where it should be). To ‘push forward’ the Appraisal due date, add an exemption.

Example: Dr Ryan’s Appraisal month is April. For the 25/26 Appraisal year she was initially due on 30th April 2025. The early Appraisal took place on 30th December 2024, i.e., in the 24/25 Appraisal year:

When it comes to allocating Appraisals to Appraisal years, we are following the NHS England guidelines set out here:

NHS England Annex C – Annual Organisational Audit (AOA)

Unfortunately, they do not allow for an early Appraisal to be allocated to the next Appraisal year. In this case, click on + Add Exemption in the 25/26 Appraisal year row as above, then enter an explanation and click Save:

Dr Ryan's due date will now be 30th April 2026. N.B. the category for the 25/26 Appraisal year will be a Category 2 (approved missed or postponed Appraisal).

To reduce the number of doctors that have an early Appraisal, we recommend the number of doctors with an Appraisal month of April is kept to a minimum. Also, each trust/organisation can set the content for the bespoke Appraisal reminders, so they can specify that Appraisals should take place within their allocated Appraisal month, and not before.

What to Do When a Doctor Starts After Their Appraisal Month Due Date

For example, Dr Langworth started in January 2026, that is in the 25/26 Appraisal year. Their Appraisal month is April, so their due date for that year is 30th April 2025, and they are currently non-compliant. In this situation, their Appraisal from their previous trust should be uploaded as an "offline" Appraisal. For doctors who have recently completed training, it should be noted that their final ARCP equates to an Appraisal in this context. If there is no previous Appraisal, it is expected that the new Designated Body investigates and urgently appraises the doctor (subject to any reasons for an exemption, which is a decision to be made by the RO).

To manage new starters, there is the Appraisal New Starters page (ADMIN > Medical Revalidation > Appraisals > Appraisal New Starters) which lists doctors that started in the current Appraisal year. On this page there are links to request details of a doctor’s previous Appraisal, upload a previous Appraisal, or add an exemption:

N.B. Dummy data was used in all of the above images.

Updated on: 15/05/2026

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