Regulation
The importance of CPD
How to keep up to date on retaining your registration with the Health and Care Professions Council
Every time you renew your registration, you will need to confirm that you continue to meet the standards of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), including its standards of continuing professional development (CPD).
Each profession renews at a set time and these dates are the same every two years. The next renewal period for radiographers will run from 1 December 2023 to 28 February 2024. During your renewal period, the HCPC randomly selects 2.5% of the radiography profession and asks them to submit their CPD profile. Please ensure your personal details are up to date so the HCPC can contact you if you are selected for an audit.
Being selected is nothing to be concerned about if you have been completing and recording CPD regularly. However, you may be asked to provide more information if your profile is unclear or incomplete.
The HCPC sets out standards for CPD that every registrant should meet to ensure their activities are effective. If a registrant cannot prove they have kept up their CPD, they may be removed from the register.
The five CPD standards
HCPC registrants must:
#1
Maintain a continuous, up-to-date and accurate record of their CPD activities.
#2
Demonstrate that their CPD is a mixture of learning activities relevant to current or future practice
#3
Seek to ensure their CPD has contributed to the quality of their practice and service delivery.
#4
Seek to ensure that their CPD benefits the service user.
#5
Upon request, present a written profile (which must be their own work and supported by evidence) explaining how they have met the HCPC’s standards for CPD.
Choosing CPD activities
CPD activities must include a mixture of different types of learning, so you will need to carry out at least two different types. In practice, most registrants will carry out many different types of learning while registered. If you were audited and had only carried out one type of learning – for example, if you had only read professional journals – you would not meet the HCPC standard.
There are four main types of learning
Work-based learning
For example, reflecting on experiences at work, considering feedback from service users or being a member of a committee.
Professional activity
For example, being involved in a professional body or giving a presentation at a conference.
Formal education
For example, going on formal courses or carrying out research.
Self-directed learning
For example, reading articles or books.
How to complete your CPD profile
There are four main parts to your CPD profile: the summary of your practice history, a statement of how you have met the CPD standards, a list of your activities and evidence to support your statement.
Practice history summary
(Up to 500 words)
You are asked to describe your role and the type of work you do. This information helps the HCPC assess whether your CPD is relevant to your current or future practice. The summary should include your main responsibilities, identify the specialist areas of your work and identify the people you communicate and work with most.
Your own written statement
(Up to 1,500 words)
Here you are asked to draw on the CPD studies you carried out to show how you met the standards. You will be concentrating mostly on how your CPD activities improve the quality of your work and benefit service users. One way to complete your statement is to choose four to six CPD activities you have carried out and, for each one, describe: the activity; what you learned; and how you think the activity improved the quality of your work and benefited your service users.
A list of your CPD activities
(Dated within the year)
A dated list of the CPD activities that you have carried out since you last renewed your registration.
Evidence to support the activities
(Maximum of 12 pieces)
Here you upload evidence of the activities you have written about in your statement. In your record of CPD activities, you may have a large amount of evidence relating to certain activities. However, you only need to include evidence to support the activities discussed in your personal statement. The HCPC recommends a minimum of four and maximum of 12 pieces of evidence to support your statement.
Tips from the HCPC assessors
Keep it simple. Use simple language to describe the CPD you have done, what you have learned from it, and how it has benefited you and your service users. Do not try to describe in detail every activity of the past two years – select a small number of different activities that you feel have benefited you the most.
Remember to include a dated list, in chronological order, of all the CPD activities you have completed in the previous two years. Be careful to explain any gaps of three consecutive months or more. Before submitting, double check your profile to ensure all relevant documentation is included.
Do not send in evidence of all of your CPD activities. The HCPC only needs evidence to support the activities you have written about. Do not include identifiable information about a service user, this must be anonymised.
The HCPC has comprehensive online resources on CPD and the renewal process, including case studies and videos, at www.hcpc-uk.org/cpd
What is CPD Now?
At the heart of the CPD resources available to SoR members is CPD Now, the College of Radiographers’ online CPD planning, recording and evaluation system. It is available free, directly from your online membership account, at www.sor.org.
The CPD Now platform enables you to identify the areas of your practice that you want to enhance, and to prepare and carry out CPD activities. You can evaluate and reflect on your learning using the suggested reflective statements or your own preferred model of reflection.
As well as enabling you to put together your CPD portfolio easily and effectively, CPD Now contains a number of features you will find helpful. These include:
Personal development tool. An editable tool to help you identify and plan your CPD.
Invite a reviewer. Ask someone to review and verify your CPD records.
HCPC audit tool. CPD Now makes the process of completing your CPD profile quick and easy, enabling you to submit a fully formatted document if requested.
Your personal accreditation. If you meet the College’s standards for CPD accreditation, you can generate a certificate to evidence this at any time.
With CPD Now accreditation, you can be confident that you will have undertaken enough of the right kinds of CPD activities to stand you in good stead for an HCPC audit. The College’s CPD standard is 12 pieces of CPD, recorded in CPD Now (carried out over a two-year period), which meet at least six CPD Now framework outcomes.
Keeping up to date
A great way to keep up with all the latest developments in radiography to support your CPD, check out the SoR events page for a stream of free virtual events: www.sor.org/events
Image credit: Photo by Accuray on Unsplash
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