Performance appraisal and career counselling for senior house officers

A pilot scheme of appraisal and career counselling for senior house officers (SHOs) in the Northern region has been undertaken. There were two sets of guidelines for the conduct of these interviews, one was a list of topics and the other a modification of the Manchester rating scale. All appraisal interviews were evaluated separately by the participating SHOs and consultants. There was strong concordance between these evaluations irrespective of the format chosen. Almost all participants considered that the interviews were useful, resulted in a fair assessment of performance, and fulfilled the stated aims of the scheme.