Appealing NCIA Decision Process Steps

Guidance

Appealing the outcome of your Clinical Impact Award application

How to request an appeal if you think that ACCIA did not follow the right processes when we assessed your application for a national Clinical Impact award (NCIA).

From: Advisory Committee on Clinical Impact Awards Published 31 March 2026 Get emails about this page

Applies to England and Wales

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How to appeal

All appeals for NCIAs are handled by the Advisory Committee on Clinical Impact Awards (ACCIA).

To appeal, log into your NCIA account where you will find the steps you need to take, include the deadline to request an appeal.

You need to tell us why you think the assessment process was unfair and give evidence.

Do not send additional documents relating to the evidence in your original application. We cannot consider this when reviewing your appeal.

Reasons you can request an appeal

You can request an appeal if you think we did not follow the right processes when we assessed your application.

You cannot appeal because you disagree with the outcome of your application, the scores awarded or the judgement of our assessors.

You can appeal if you believe:

• irrelevant information was considered - you need to tell us what irrelevant information you think this was
• you were discriminated against due to characteristics such as your gender, ethnicity or age
• the usual evaluation processes were not followed
• the committee, or any of its members, showed bias or had a conflict of interest

How we handle appeals

The ACCIA secretariat will investigate your evidence and submit it to our chair and medical director, who will consider it and the processes that were followed to decide if your appeal is justified. They will then ask a panel of 2 sub-committee members - one medical and one non-medical - who were not involved in the assessment of your application to review their proposed decision to ensure it is robust. If it is decided that there are no grounds for appeal, we will write to tell you why.

If there are grounds for appeal and we cannot resolve the problem informally, we will set up a formal appeal.

Formal appeal

A separate panel of people who did not assess your application or the decision to progress the appeal will consider the formal appeal. The panel will include:

• a medical or dental professional
• an employer

• a non-professional member as chairperson
  They will look at:

• your appeal

• the documents that set out our agreed assessment process

• a written statement of what the committee did when they considered your application
  You can see all the documents the panel considers. You can also send more written statements about your appeal and what you believe happened.

The panel does not usually hear oral evidence, but you can apply in writing to have an oral hearing. The panel chair will decide whether you can have one.

If your appeal is successful

If your appeal is successful, our chair and medical director will consider the best way to put things right. Their decision will be consistent with other similar appeals.

Even if your appeal against the process is successful, you may not get your renewal or a new award. If this happens, we will write to you to tell you why.

Process and timeline for appeals

We try to resolve appeals in line with the process and indicative timeline set out below. If there are delays, we will let you know. The process is as follows:

• you must request an appeal within 28 days of the notification of the outcome of the annual awards round being sent to you
• when we get your request to appeal, we will contact you within 5 working days to acknowledge its receipt. At this point we may contact you for any additional information required to properly review your appeal
• our secretariat, chair and medical director will review your case and decide whether you have grounds for a formal appeal
• our chair and medical director will let you know if there will be a formal appeal within approximately 20 working days of the date we got in touch
• if there is a formal appeal, we will set up a panel and agree a date for them to meet, usually within 20 working days When our chair and medical director hear what the panel has decided, they will let you know the final decision, usually within 20 working days.

In all cases, the panel’s decision is final.

Published 31 March 2026 Get emails about this page Print this page Contents

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