Adult Services - Continuing Professional Development Framework (CPD)

What is CPD and why should we do it?

Definition of CPD:

‘a range of learning activities through which health professionals maintain and develop throughout their career to ensure that they retain their capacity to practice safely, effectively and legally within their evolving scope of practice’'. (Health Care Professions Council (HCPC))

CPD is vital to ensure continued high quality support for service users and carers, to promote professional identity and confidence, to ensure that you remain up to date with professional developments and can adjust your practice in line with new evidence. It is about how you continue to consolidate your skills and evolve in a positive way during the course of your professional career.

The HCPC requires that all registered professionals:

• 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
• Upon request, present a written profile (which must be their own work and supported by evidence) explaining how they have met the standards for CPD

Read more about the Standards of Continuing Professional Development on the HCPC website or in their CPD handbook

When you renew your registration (every 2 years) HCPC will randomly audit the CPD activities of 2.5 per cent of each sector of registered professionals. If you are are chosen for audit you must submit a CPD profile to show how your CPD meets their standards. HCPC provide a specific pro forma for this and ask you to provide a summary of evidence rather than your whole portfolio. It is important that you maintain an ongoing portfolio of evidence as it must reflect work undertaken throughout the 2 year period and you must account for gaps of more than 3 months.

Guidance on completing the profile and the pro forma can be found on the HCPC website

The HCPC have published sample copies of completed profiles for Social Work, which you may find helpful to use as a reference.

CPD is a shared responsibility of individual professionals and their employers. For those staff who are registered with the HCPC, it is a condition of re-registration that they keep up to date with CPD and can demonstrate how it has contributed to the quality of their practice and service delivery and benefitted service users. The Standards for Employers of Social Workers in England developed by the Social Work Reform Board give employers the duty to provide opportunities for CPD so that staff can maintain their professional registration.

As part of the launch of the CPD framework in Hampshire Adult Services it has been agreed that all qualified staff should have one hour per week protected CPD time, which must be agreed with line managers and can be used flexibly. It is the individual's responsibility to take the time and ensure they make good use of it and it cannot be accumulated. CPD time should include reflection, critical analysis, linking theory with practice, recording, and some short development activities as agreed in supervision/IPP, e.g. team reflective sessions. Attendance on training courses is not included but reflecting on/recording your learning from courses is, as it is no longer adequate just to record hours/days attendance.

CPD is obviously important for all staff in Adult Services and we are beginning to work on a development pathway for unqualified staff, of which there will be more news soon. The requirement for protected CPD time is not currently extended to unqualified staff but it could be allowed at managers' discretion and it is strongly recommended that team reflective practice sessions include all staff.

If you need support to identify how to complete your CPD please visit our Examples of CPD activities page.

If you have any further questions about your CPD please email professional.development@hants.gov.uk or visit the pages below:

Frequently asked questions

Glossary

Social work and the PCF

For social workers a new set of guidelines have been produced called the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) which serves as a backdrop to CPD. The PCF has been developed by social workers and is owned by The College of Social Work on behalf of the profession. The PCF has 9 domains and is divided into levels from pre-qualifying right through to senior management. The levels aim to reflect to the complexity of work that a social worker undertakes at various points in their career and can help you identify your learning and development needs.

CPD for Occupational Therapists

OTs continue to be registered with HCPC and follow the same standards of CPD. The College of Occupational Therapists has a selection of CPD tools which practitioners may find helpful for guiding their CPD.

Tools for OTs