All Health Boards in receipt of Medical ACT funding are required to submit an annual accountability report to NES; this includes all 14 territorial Health Boards, the State Hospital, the Scottish Ambulance Service and the National Waiting Times Centre, which reports on activity from the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service.

For funding received during a previous allocation year, Boards are normally requested to submit an accountability report early in the next year’s funding cycle. Therefore for funding received in 2020-21, Boards were asked to submit accountability reports by a deadline of 30^th June 2021. Responding to feedback from Directors of Medical Education, we were pleased to adjust the deadline for submission of 2021-22 accountability reports to late September 2022. We plan to continue with this adjusted timeline in future years.  

Accountability reports are required to demonstrate regions are making the best use of Medical ACT Funding and also allow NES to collect performance management data. Information provided in the Accountability reports includes:

1. Actual Medical ACT expenditure for the previous financial year
2. Up to date baseline budgets for Medical ACT showing the allocation to each specialty/department
3. Measurement of Teaching (MoT) compliance
4. Plans for the forthcoming year e.g. changes to curriculum or teaching delivery that might impact on funding

Completed reports must be reviewed by relevant Regional ACT Working groups before a final copy is submitted to NES; this requires signatures from the Director of Medical Education and Director of Finance for the Board.

The deadline for receipt of 2020-21 reports was 30^th June 2021; NES received 15 completed accountability reports.

The deadline for receipt of 2021-22 reports was 30^th September 2022; NES received 17 Accountability Reports (two after the deadline).

Data from the 2020-2021 accountability reports was reviewed by the Medical ACT Team during autumn 2021; exemplar reports were noted and changes to the reporting template for the 2021-2022 process were made.  Following engagement with Boards and Medical ACT Officers, a new accountability report template was released in spring 2022. The main change was the inclusion of pre-populated information already held by NES relating to additional allocation proposals.

NES plans to expand on the amount of pre-populated information provided in future years’ reports to minimise work required at Board level. Boards were requested to submit data in a standard format which was also a change from previous years; it is hoped that this move will allow the Medical ACT team to consolidate Board information more readily which will help inform future funding requirements.

NES appreciates the significant contribution required from colleagues across Health Boards in order to complete the accountability reports. Generic feedback around report themes is presented during the Autumn meeting of MAWG and feedback can be provided to individual Boards on request. More detailed outcomes, including performance management data from 2021-22 reports, will be provided at the Spring meeting of MAWG in 2023 when the new templates for reporting on 2022-23 funding are also due for release to Boards; and thus the cycle is repeated.

The accountability report summary 2021-22 can be found at medicalACT.nes@nhs.scot