The Department of Health has announced that GPs will have to pay to access its NHS Appraisal Toolkit website from the end of October.
The DH said doctors who wish to use the toolkit after 31 October will need to subscribe or hope that their primary care trust will meet the subscription costs. The subscription fee has yet to be released but the DH said “a reasonable charge for each doctor” would be announced shortly.
It said the decision to withdraw free access to the site was in line with the recently published white paper Liberating the NHS and said DH policy was that arrangements for appraisals should be made locally within the NHS.
The NHS Appraisal Toolkit was closed by the DH for almost a month earlier this year following fears that it could be vulnerable to hackers. However the DH said the decision to stop central funding for the toolkit was not connected to the security fears and added that “all information security issues have been resolved.”
The DH said the NHS Appraisal Toolkit will continue to be run by contractors SCHIN/Clarity Informatics until the introduction of revalidation in 2012 when the DH said it would reconsider the toolkit’s role “and may decide to withdraw it at that stage.”
Around 10,000 GPs a day were accessing the toolkit earlier this year after access was suspended because of security fears and the DH said data for all doctors would continue to be held securely for one year after the end of free access on 31 October. However the DH said it strongly recommended that doctors not planning to subscribe to the site print or save appraisal forms before 31 October.
The DH said doctors who choose to subscribe to the site will get free access to RevalidationPLUS, an integrated appraisal and revalidation system. It said users of the toolkit could discuss with their appraisal leads whether individual trusts would fund the continuation of the service locally.
In the mean time this week the Royal College of GPs announced that its own appraisal and revalidation toolkit would begin to be available from the autumn. The ePortfolio will be free for primary care organisations, GP appraisers and GP members of the college and non members will be able to use the tool free of charge until April 2012.
The college said phase one of the ePortfolio would be available from this autumn for a group of early adopter PCOs. It said the system is designed to enable GPs and their appraisers to manage their annual appraisal and in due course their revalidation process with one software solution.
Prof Steve Field, RCGP chairman, said: “We’re really pleased to be able to offer our ePortfolio free to appraisers and GPs. The College is committed to helping GPs with practical solutions designed to make their lives simpler, the ePortfolio demonstrates this philosophy put into practice.