HPC Issues First Guidance for CPD Requirements
The following press release has been given today by the HPC
outlining the early guidance on CPD for registered professionals.
Further information can be found through the following links. Short
Guidance
The Health Professions Council (HPC) will require all health professionals on the Register to undertake Continuing Professional Development (CPD) from 1st July 2006.
This will now be a legal requirement for the future registration of 170,000 health professionals across the UK. The first audit of these standards will take place in July 2008 with chiropodists and podiatrists being the first profession to be audited, followed by operating department practitioners. The 11 other professions currently on the HPC register, will be audited during 2009/2010.
The standards mean that health professionals will have to provide evidence of CPD relating to their previous two years of practice from summer 2008. The evidence will have to show that the CPD an individual has undertaken has contributed to the quality of their practice and demonstrates that it benefited the service user. The standards apply not only to those in clinical practice, but also to those working in research, management or education.
Speaking about the CPD standards, Professor Norma Brook, President of the Health Professions Council said:
"This is an important event in the development of self-regulation. We believe that it is a vital part of our basic function, which is to protect the public, that we require individual registrants commit themselves to their own professional development and that employers, too, recognise the importance of CPD. We will therefore be requiring all of our registrants to undertake CPD and be seeking to ensure that the CPD carried out by our professions is robust and effective.
"The HPC offers a clear framework with flexibility at the centre of our decisions, but CPD will be the responsibility of the individual."
Registrants
will be able to undertake CPD through an extensive range of learning activities
(for full details, please see our website www.hpc-uk.org/registrants/cpd/)
however if CPD is already being carried out, for example in conjunction with a
registrant's professional body, there will be no need to duplicate the work
already done.
Now is the time to sign up for the BPA online CPD scheme which is a
member only benefit and meets all the requirements set by the HPC. CPD
This Way for BPA Members
If you are not yet a member of your professional body then join now by clicking here.
Membership is open to Paramedics; EMT's; ACA's,; EMD's and ECP's who
would all benefit individually from CPD before registration is
mandatory for all.