National Clinical Impact Awards (NCIA) 2025

The 2025 round of National Clinical Impact Awards (NCIA) will open 1st April 2025 and close at 16:59 on 27th May 2025.

This is the expected timetable for the 2025 national awards round. The Advisory Committee on Clinical Impact Awards will review this timetable regularly and minor changes may be made. Please check the Gov.uk paged for regular updates.

  • 1st April 2025 to 5pm on 27th May 2025 - applications open
  • 30th May to 14th July 2025 - first round scoring
  • August to October 2025 - national 3 (N3) scoring
  • July to November 2025 - governance review
  • September to October 2025 - National Reserve Sub-committee (NRES) scoring
  • End of November 2025 - main committee finalisation of recommendations
  • December 2025 to January 2026 - recommendations to and sign-off by ministers
  • January to February 2026 - notifications sent to successful applicants and finance processes initiated to pay awards
  • January to February 2026 - appeals window open
Changes to the 2025 National Clinical Impact Awards round
  • Employer citations/statements - these will no longer be required, instead we will ask a series of questions to confirm that the contents of the form are correct and the applicant is meeting their contractual obligations.
  • Care Quality Commission/Health Inspectorate Wales ratings - applicants will no longer be asked to provide these, though they can still comment on their impact on such ratings in their domain evidence if they wish.
  • Timing of award payments - all new awards granted in the 2025 round will commence 1 April 2026 and run for five years from that date. This will harmonise all awards granted in any given year, making re-application timing consistent and easier to understand.

Read the full 2025 process and policy changes here.

Guidance

As with the 2024 round the Royal Colleges and Specialty Associations do not provide rankings or citations, so applications are to be made directly through the ACCIA portal.

NCIA have made a template application form available (download a template 2025 application form) for those that wish to start prepping before the application window is open. To note, NCIA only accept applications through the online portal and the template application was created to help applicants prepare and not as a mechanism to officially apply.

Guidance for applicants can be found on the ACCIA Home Page which includes:

The BOA also have prepared a guidance document with advice to help you prepare.

Important Note:

Given that the awards will no longer be pensionable and, in England, at least initially it will not be possible to hold local and national awards concurrently, we strongly advise that members consider their individual circumstances carefully before applying.

The BMA have provided some helpful scenarios on their website here, with further detail on the values of National Clinical Impact Awards (NCIAs) and Local Clinical Excellence Awards in England (LCEAs) here.

BMA members can access other tools to help understand the financial impact of accepting an award.