Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
Continuing professional development (CPD) is the way in which our registrants continue to learn and develop throughout their careers, so that they keep their knowledge and skills up to date and are able to practise safely and effectively. We set our CPD Standards that every registrant should meet, to ensure that their activities are effective.
CPD helps you maintain or develop your competence and fitness to practise, whether your development needs are:
- for the purposes of your role or profession;
- required by your employer;
- required to meet a specific career goal; or
- aspirational, to meet your own personal goals.
CPD is an important and essential requirement for registration with the AHCS. If you do not maintain your CPD, you will be removed from the register.
The Academy standards require that you continue to develop your knowledge and skills while you are registered, these are:
- Maintain a continuous, up-to-date and accurate record of their CPD activities
- Demonstrate that their CPD activities are a mixture of learning activities relevant to current or future practice
- Seek to ensure that their CPD has contributed to the quality of their practice and service delivery
- Seek to ensure that their CPD benefits the service user
- Present a written profile containing evidence of their CPD upon request
This means that to meet these standards:
- You must keep a record of your CPD, in whatever format is most convenient for you.
- You must make sure your CPD is a mixture of different kinds of activities – not just one kind of learning – and that it is relevant to your work. It could be relevant to your current role or to a planned future role.
- You should aim for your CPD to improve the quality of your work. It may not actually improve your work, due to factors beyond your control, but when you choose your CPD activities you should intend for them to improve your work.
- You should aim for your CPD to benefit service users. You may not be able ensure directly that this happens, but you should have the intention of benefiting service users. Depending on where and how you work, service users might include patients, clients, your team, or students.
- If you are selected for audit, you will need to send us a CPD profile to show how you have met our standards. This process will be undertaken via our online registration system.
Each year, we audit a random sample of our registrants to make sure our standards are being met. If you are selected for CPD audit, we will write to you and ask you to send us information showing how you have met the CPD standards over the previous two years. The AHCS Registration Rules also allow for the AHCS Registrar to send a notice to a you, at any time, requiring you to submit your continuing professional development record for inspection within 21 days of the notice.
Full information can be found in the Continuing Professional Development: Standards and Guidance document, which offers guidance on how to keep a record of your CPD activities and the types of activity that are eligible to included in your profile.
