i think u need to have staff and categories in seperate tables, if i
understand ur question correctly.  i reccommend u find some information
concerning normalization.

all u need to do is run a query for each member of staff and category and
select max for the date field. it sounds long winded but its simple and will
work.

Two query solution
First query gets the max date for each combination of staff and category

SELECT Staff_Name, Category, Max(Date_Record_Added) as LastDate
FROM YourTable
GROUP BY Staff_Name, Category

Second query uses that to return the entire record from your table
SELECT Ta.*
FROM YourTable as Ta INNER JOIN FirstQuery as Q
On Ta.Staff_Name = Q.Staff_Name
AND Ta.Category = Q.Category
AND Ta.Date_Record_Added = Q.LastDate

That could also be written as one query as long as your table and field names
consist of only letters, numbers, and underscore characters.
SELECT Ta.*
FROM YourTable as Ta INNER JOIN

   (SELECT Staff_Name, Category, Max(Date_Record_Added) as LastDate
    FROM YourTable
    GROUP BY Staff_Name, Category) as Q

On Ta.Staff_Name = Q.Staff_Name
AND Ta.Category = Q.Category
AND Ta.Date_Record_Added = Q.LastDate

John Spencer
Access MVP 2002-2005, 2007-2008
Center for Health Program Development and Management
University of Maryland Baltimore County