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What is CPD?

Continuous Professional Development

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is the record of activities that Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) registrants keep to demonstrate their learning and development throughout their careers – showing that their skills and knowledge are current and that they continually demonstrate good professional practice.

In order to maintain HCPC registration, biomedical scientists must keep an up-to-date and accurate record of their CPD activities, demonstrate that their activities are varied and relevant to their current and future practice, explain how their CPD has contributed to their quality of practice and service delivery, and describe how their CPD benefits the service user.

The HCPC may audit a registrant at any time and request a written profile of CPD work and evidence which demonstrates how they meet the profession’s CPD standards.

For more information. 

Reflective Practice

To meet HCPC and Science Council CPD standards, we believe that IBMS members should write reflective practice for all CPD activities in order to display their learning and development. The following is a presentation on IBMS guide to Reflective Practice

A 'How to Guide' on Reflection including different ways of reflecting and useful phrases that can be used when writing reflection can be found here.

Here is the HCPC’s full list of CPD activities: 

Work-based learning
  • Learning by doing
  • Case studies
  • Reflective practice
  • Audit of service users
  • Coaching from others
  • Discussions with colleagues
  • Peer review
  • Gaining and learning from experience
  • Involvement in the wider, profession-related work of your employer (for example, being a representative on a committee)
  • Work shadowing
  • Secondments
  • Job rotation
  • Journal club
  • In-service training
  • Supervising staff or students
  • Expanding your role
  • Significant analysis of events
  • Filling in self-assessment questionnaires
  • Project work

 

Professional activities
  • Involvement in a professional body, specialist-interest group or other groups
  • Lecturing or teaching
  • Mentoring
  • Being an examiner
  • Being a tutor
  • Organising journal clubs or other specialist groups
  • Maintaining or developing specialist skills (for example, musical skills)
  • Being an expert witness
  • Giving presentations at conferences
  • Organising accredited courses
  • Supervising research or students
  • Being a national assessor

 

Formal and educational
  • Courses
  • Further education
  • Research
  • Attending conferences
  • Writing articles or papers
  • Going to seminars
  • Distance or online learning
  • Going on courses accredited by a professional body
  • Planning or running a course

 

Self-directed learning
  • Reading journals or articles
  • Reviewing books or articles
  • Updating your knowledge through the internet or TV
  • Keeping a file of your progress

 

Other
  • Relevant public service or voluntary work