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Hi all,
I talked recently to the HPC about CPD, and particularly CPD points in respect of some courses my company is running this year.
It seems that when CPD becomes mandatory later this year (with the HPC as the Watchdog ), the old "30 points a year" system will no longer apply.

Instead CPD will be judged on several criteria such as "how did this course benefit your practice, or patients?".

Comments please.
Regards,
Davidh

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Mandatory CPD is a really dumb idea .... all the evidence is that it does not work. You simply can not force people to learn. The only reason I can understand statutory bodies requireing it, is that it gives them "warm fuzzies"... :p as they are seen to be doing something.

Giving out points for number of hours sitting in a course or at a conference is an even dumber idea than making it mandatory ... how often have you been to a conference, course or meeting and come Monday morning, your patients are no better off . There is plenty of evidence supporting the kinds of activities that do lead to better patent outcomes .... giving points for hours at a meeting is NOT one of them. It always puzzles me that we advocate 'evidence based practice', yet when it come to continuing education and professional development so many ignore the evidence on that .... don't figure

So, at least is a major step in the right direction.

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Craig Payne
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God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things - right now I am so far behind, I will never die.

Thanks for your views Craig.

Pretty much what I believe too!

Cheers,
Davidh

Hello Craig
You are absolutely right. The trouble is that in the U.K. (and I dare say elsewhere), we have too many civil servants (one of the great misnomers), managers and the like polishing seats with their backsides. This type of personality is obsessed with check boxes and attempt, by a process of reductionism, to dumb down professionalism to a level to which they can relate. As we all know, it just does not work that way.
The problem is, how do you acheive the laudable aim of professional updating without instituting a system of examination? The Royal Colleges of Surgery and the podiatric surgeons in the U.K. have evolved a system of peer review which goes some way towards the aim but speaking personally, I found it a stressful process although ultimately rewarding. It's worthy of note that some focussed criticism was made of the hospital facilities which the management found convenient to ignore!
Until the professional and statutory bodies can agree on a common pathway to a common outcome I suspect that dumbing down will be the order of the day.

All the best

Bill

Hello everyone!

I think the fact that CPD will now be mandatory is good.
It was all very easy in the UK for someone to get trained, get qualified and that was it.

I am SMAE trained. Nobody actually made us do CPD in order to get insurance, and of course registration is new for us anyway. I'm told that those on the old State Register did not actually HAVE to do CPD to stay on the old register either. Things change (for example drugs and infection control ideas to name 2) so keeping uptodate keeps us safer.

Some people need to be made to keep uptodate.

I think the HPC's 'flexible' approach with regard to CPD is a good idea. I like the fact that we will have a portfolio of CPD and write in it the relevance of what we have learned. Surely it must be improvement on the past?

If you work in the NHS your CPD is paid for you isn't it? Also if you work full time for them don't they help you with study days if you want to do a degree top-up etc? (Which also would count as lashings of CPD).

If you work in private practce, especially as you can choose your CPD then you can do CPD that can ultimately help you to earn more money, for example one of David's Biomechanics of Practice builder workshops.

Cheers,

Robin.

Hi Robin,
I have to say I was pleasantly suprised when the HPC informed me that practice development courses also count towards CPD.
Of course this makes CPD a lot more relevant than say, simply attending courses and a conference each year to pick up CPD points.
Regards,
Davidh