The Distinction and Meritorious Awards Scheme has been revised by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland, and new procedures were introduced in September 2001 for the 2001-2002 round of wards. The principal changes are as follows:

1. (1) A system of self-nomination has been introduced and all consultants are invited to do this by completing a CV questionnaire form.

2. (2) The monitoring has been strengthened by the collection of information on community background, ethnic origin, gender, age and marital status from employers.

3. (3) There are six criteria to be considered in the recommendations for an award: professional excellence; research and innovation; outstanding administrative or management effort; outstanding contribution to other forms of service development (e.g. clinical audit, clinical governance, promulgation of evidence-based medicine); teaching and training; and outstanding service commitment. The last of these has been extended to read: ‘outstanding commitment to the achievement of service goals, innovative service delivery, and the sustained delivery of high quality patient care in hard pressed service areas’.

4. (4) The upper age limit of 62 has been removed.

5. (5) The CV questionnaire forms are based on the specific criteria listed above and consultants are asked to demonstrate how they meet these.

6. (6) A similar CV questionnaire form has been introduced for the 5-year reviews, together with a corresponding citation form.

The closing date for self-nomination is in September. All completed forms are sent to the Senior Award Holder, who convenes a meeting of all award holders (A+, A and B) to consider these. If unable to attend, award holders are invited to submit their support for the candidate(s) of their choice. All nominees are considered in turn and ranked in order according to the support of the panel members. Finally, a citation form, based on the same six criteria, is completed by a member of the Merit Award Holders' Panel on behalf of nominees considered by the panel to merit a Distinction Award.

In the 2001-2002 round, 13 self-nominations were received from 94 consultants. A further six consultants held an A+, A or B award. Six of the self-nominations were supported by the Award Holders' Panel and one was successful.

A detailed guide to the scheme is circulated to all consultants in June each year as well as an annual report the following May. The website address is: http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/hss/dmsac.html