The Royal College of Psychiatrists no longer approves CPD
activities centrally or regionally. Because CPD is now much more
personally relevant to each psychiatrist, CPD approval is granted
to each individual by his or her peer group. If an event is
approved for CPD by the peer group, it should be awarded a number
of hours.
1 hour CPD may be claimed for each hour of educational
activity
No more than 6 hours per day may be claimed
The Royal College of Psychiatrists divides CPD activities into
internal and external activities and recommends participants to
take part in a mixture of both. There is an annual requirement of
50 hours of CPD in order to remain in good standing with
recommendations for each module as follows:
|
MODULE
|
ANNUAL REQUIREMENT
|
|
External
|
20 hours
|
|
Internal
|
30 hours
|
In addition, it is recommended that at least 2 hours
per week be spent in informal self-directed learning activities -
e.g. reading, personal study, distance learning.
The approval guidance has been set up to ensure that
activities undertaken by those participating in the CPD programme
fulfil the College criteria and are relevant to career grade staff.
This document aims to provide guidance on the standards of CPD
activities acceptable to the College.
Criteria for CPD events
In order to qualify as an appropriate CPD activity an event
should:
- Be of an appropriate standard for a career grade
psychiatrist.
- Be of relevance to the pursuit of an individual psychiatrist’s
clinical, educational, research and other professional
activities.
- Need not be confined solely to medical topics and improvements
in patient care but can also include additional topics such as
management, medical ethics, computing, personal development,
etc.
- Have educational objectives which are matched by the content
and teaching methods based on the principles of adult
learning.
- Not be primarily promotional where there is a commercial
sponsor.
- Include a mechanism for evaluation so that the organisers,
presenters and other participants can obtain feedback on the
relevance, quality and effectiveness of the activity.
Participants are expected to plan their CPD with their peer
group so that it covers a wide range of activities and addresses
their individual needs. The responsibility for making decisions
regarding the content, suitability and educational value of the CPD
they undertake lies with participants and their peer groups based
on personal development plans.
Typical CPD activities
- Conferences, symposia, short training courses, workshops and
seminars organised locally, regionally, nationally and
internationally.
- Long training courses, degree / diploma courses, research
projects, etc
- Local Trust / hospital-based educational activities, e.g.
Journal Clubs, case conferences, audit, clinical review and post
graduate meetings, etc.
In case of long taught courses, such as Diploma / Degree
courses, the total number of hours accredited cannot exceed half of
the CPD requirement for the External Category for that year.