CPD FOR PROVIDERS
Continuing professional development (CPD) is an important part of continuing registration for all medical and health care professionals. To uphold standards within the profession and maintain patient safety, healthcare registration bodies and colleges require all registered healthcare professionals to continue to develop their knowledge and skills while they are registered. CPD Healthcare is an independent organisation specialising in the approval and verification of CPD activities in medicine and health care, including for multidisciplinary teams.
As a provider of medical or health care CPD we recommend that you should:
- Identify your audience and understand their CPD requirements
- Develop a clear plan of what you will deliver and how you will deliver it
- Avoid trying to deliver a sales presentation as CPD. Instead, develop CPD on the clinical area you work in explain the role your specific products play in the wider picture
- Be clear in advance about the length of time your CPD will last and stick to your timings
- Break longer CPD events (eg a 1 day conference) into manageable chunks (1 or 2 hours long)
- Publish clear and concise learning objectives and anticipated outcomes for the CPD you plan to deliver
- Register as an accredited provider with an appropriate approving body
- Have your CPD approved in advance by an appropriate approving body
- Be clear in advance about the length of time your CPD will last and stick to your timings
- Verify attendance by use of a signing-in sheet or badge scanning
- Issue a certificate to all delegates who attended setting out clearly what CPD they participated in
- Register as an accredited provider with an appropriate approving body
- Maintain records of the CPD you delivered and who attended for at least 5 years and be prepared to reissue certificates to delegates who may have lost them
We ask providers to register with us and provide information about their training when making their first CPD approval application. We provide support and advice on best practice to our network of approved providers and can help you plan and organise your CPD strategy. Our network of providers can draw on our expertise in healthcare CPD provision and receive advice on minimum CPD requirements for different professions.
The information you provide about your CPD course is submitted to an appropriate member of our panel, all of whom are medical or health care professionals with experience of training and education. We assess the delivery method, the suitability of the content for the target audience, the appropriateness of the authors and trainers, whether or not the learning objectives are likely to be achieved and how achievement of the learning objectives will be assessed.
Unlike many approving bodies, we only charge for approval of content once. We can approve your CPD for multiple professions (including multidisciplinary teams) in a single application and when your course is approved, you can repeat it as may times as you like, as long as you remain a member of our provider network.
You and your clients can search approved providers here
CPD FOR PROFESSIONALS
As a registered medical or health care professional we recommend you should:
- Check with your college or registration body what minimum CPD requirement applies to you
- Diarise the deadlines that apply to your CPD
- Plan proactively by maintaining a personal development plan to coordinate your learning and to ensure you meet the minimum CPD requirement.
- Keep up to date in the topics recommended by your professional body
- Regularly log or record what CPD you have done using a manual or online CPD diary and remember that you may need to send it to your professional body
- Reflect on your learning and consider, how does this activity contribute towards my development in my practice?
- Always be honest about what you have done even if this means you fail to meet the minimum requirement (dishonesty can’t be undone but failure to do enough CPD can be rectified)
- Check whether the CPD you complete is verifiable. Does it have quality controls, concise aims and objectives and clear learning outcomes?
- Always ask for a CPD certificate following verifiable CPD
You can check whether your course of study or provider is verified by CPD Healthcare by searching our database here.