Clinical excellence awards for 2011 are capped at 300

New national clinical excellence awards for 2011 have been capped at a maximum of 300 on advice from MPs, the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards (ACCEA) has announced.

In a letter to the chair and medical director of ACCEA, the health minister Simon Burns wrote: “My judgement is that the best course is to limit the volume of the new awards to 300 as last year. This number of awards would be a significant recognition of the work which has been done by the most excellent consultants in pursuit of NHS objectives.”

The limit, which will apply to England and to Wales, would also allow the government to cut costs and to ensure enough funding for a new scheme to be launched after the review of the arrangement by the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB), he said.

The BMA has condemned this cap on the number of awards, which represents freezing the number at the 2010 level. “We’re extremely disappointed that the number of new awards is being capped at the same level,” said Paul Flynn, deputy chairman of the BMA’s Central Consultants and Specialists Committee. “It’s well recognised that when consultants deliver high quality, innovative services they save the NHS money. We’d suggest that there are many areas where savings could be made before removing incentives to reward quality.”

Mark Porter, chairman of the committee, described the move as a “stealth cut.” He said, “It’s quite astounding that at the very moment the government wants to encourage and reward excellent performance in one’s job, the system that does so is being criticised as a ‘bonus’ scheme—which it is not and never has been,” he added. “It’s hard to know what to think about what this means for the future, because the UK governments have yet to decide on a united response to the still unpublished DDRB report into the schemes.”

In the 2011 round in England the ACCEA received 996 new applications for bronze awards, 789 applications for silver awards, 206 applications for gold awards, and 100 applications for platinum awards. The body has now announced that it will hand out 154 bronze awards, 87 silver awards, 33 gold awards, and 25 platinum awards in England. The duration of the new awards and renewals for 2011 will depend on the transitional arrangements into any new scheme.

The announcement of 2011 awards and opening of the 2012 round have been delayed while MPs consider the recommendations from the DDRB’s review of the scheme, in particular whether new awards should be allocated in 2012.

The ACCEA said, “In previous correspondence to the chair and medical director of ACCEA, the minister indicated his wish to delay the announcement of decisions on new awards in 2011 and the announcement on whether there would be a new awards round in 2012 until the department had considered the DDRB report on the scheme.

“As ministers are still considering the report, they have decided to announce the 2011 new awards now and will shortly confirm the position on the 2012 awards round.”

However, the ACCEA has said that it is “working on the assumption” that there will be new awards in 2012 and is “anticipating” a renewal round next year.

October has been mooted as the opening date for the 2012 awards, with the closing date unchanged at 9 December. The ACCEA has suggested that doctors begin work on their application by using Word versions of the application form available on its website to prepare for this truncated application window.

• Full results of the 2011 round of clinical excellence awards and application forms for 2012 are available at www.dh.gov.uk/ab/ACCEA/index.htm.