The main change proposed is to bring the College procedures for the English and Welsh nominations forward so that the nomination process begins in June rather than in November/December as at present.

The Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards (ACCEA) has asked the President to ensure that in future the Divisions play a far greater central role in the nomination for awards. It is therefore suggested that the Faculties and Sections begin the College process by preparing their ranked lists in June. They will send these to the Divisions who will refer to them in their nomination process. This should greatly improve communication between Faculties, Sections and Divisions. The individual Faculty, Section and Division lists will be considered at the College meeting in November/December.

The London Division have devised a system which scores nominees against criteria which are largely based on the ACCEA domains. This seems to have been highly successful and it is recommended that the system be adopted by all the English Divisions. Training is available to facilitate this process.

At present only award holders may be representatives on the College's central committee. These representatives are identified by their respective Executive Committees. In future it is recommended that representation at the College Committee will not be limited to award holders, although representatives will continue to be selected by their Executive Committees. Guidance notes will be prepared for Committee members.

It will be made clear in the notice to the membership that members are encouraged to submit nominations to Faculties, Sections and Divisions. Nominations will only come via Officers if for some reason they cannot be submitted to a Faculty, Section or Division. Members will also be reminded that it is their responsibility, and not the College's, to submit their CV questionnaires (CVQs) to ACCEA. Members will also be reminded that trust support is not a prerequisite for College support.

Psychiatrists who are on the Regional Awards Committee should be identified so that they can work more closely with Divisions. The President should contact ACCEA if there are regions without psychiatric representation.

The revised timetable is given below.

January

Prepare notice for Psychiatric Bulletin informing membership of College's system for nominating for awards. This will appear in the April edition. Reminder notices to appear on the College website throughout the year.

February

Current College Committee members sent final list of College nominations and informed of date of next College meeting.

April

Details of process appear in Psychiatric Bulletin/on the website. Members asked to submit CVQs to Faculties, Sections and Divisions (on the form used the previous year, assuming that the new form is not available at this stage).

June/July

Faculties and Sections hold meeting of Executive Committee to consider and rank nominations. If CVQs are weak, members are contacted and advised to amend them.

As results for awards for the current year will not be known at this stage, Faculty and Section members who have been included on the final College list submitted earlier in January will be included on the new list. Faculties and Sections send ranked list to Divisions.

August to October

Divisions hold meetings of Executive Committee to consider their nominations. The ranked lists from the Faculties and Sections are taken into account. As for Faculties and Sections, members who have been included on the College list submitted to ACCEA the previous January are also included on this list. Lists are forwarded to the College Secretariat.

The Honorary Officers convene a similar meeting but only discuss those nominations which have not been submitted to the Faculties, Sections or Divisions.

November

Divisions, Faculties, Sections and Honorary Officers update their list of nominations and circulate them to each other. After results of previous round are announced by ACCEA, the successful nominees are removed and other nominees move up the list.

Divisions, Faculties and Sections contact individual nominees asking them to complete their CVQ on the new form (assuming that it continues to change each year) and to submit this to ACCEA. The ranked lists of the Divisions, Faculty and Sections, together with all CVQs and citations (drafted specifically for the College focusing on national rather than local contribution), are forwarded to the College Secretariat.

It has been suggested that, at this stage, the College Secretariat could prepare the list of nominations received with details of individual ranking. Committee members would be sent a draft voting paper in advance of the College's meeting to complete and return to the Secretariat. The results and the draft College ranked list would then be tabled at the College's meeting. The discussion would largely focus on borderline nominations. It is likely that the meetings to discuss the silver, gold and bronze nominations would then take half a day rather than a full day as at present.

November/December

The College's Committee meeting takes place. CVQs, the list of nominations with individual ranking and a draft voting paper are circulated in advance to the College Committee. The number of awards allocated to the College are announced.

Committee members speak to their higher-ranked nominees. For bronze awards the number will vary with the size of the constituency. The 2006 allocation is shown in Table 1, but in the future this might be based on Regional Awards Committees. Voting papers are tabled and Committee members vote using the following categories:

1. • Definitely

2. • Not this year

3. • Not supported.

Committee members limit the number of definite nominations to the number allocated to the College.

January

The College Secretariat will submit the final results, together with the College specific citations, to ACCEA.

Summary of recommendations

The recommendations are shown below.

1. • Change timetable

2. • Faculty/Section lists to be sent to Divisions

3. • Divisions to adopt London scoring system

4. • Representatives need not be award holders

5. • Initial voting before College meeting

6. • Identify psychiatrist representatives on regional ACCEA committees.