Continuing Professional Development Jill ILIFFE Executive Secretary Commonwealth Nurses Federation
What is Registration: what is Licensure There are MANY different meanings for the same thing Your name is entered on the register when you complete your initial qualification as a nurse or midwife and you are issued with a license to practice.
What is Registration: what is Licensure Life long registration and no requirement for renewal of your license to practice. Initial registration and renewal of your license to practice annually (or each 3 years or 5 years) with or without a requirement for mandatory or voluntary CPD. Some countries also require recency of practice, that is, you have practiced in your profession within the last 5 years. How is CPD to be linked to registration and licensure?
What is CPD There are MANY different names for the same thing CPD: Continuing professional development CNE: Continuing nursing education CPE: Continuing professional education CME: Continuing medical education CE: Continuing education LLL: Life long learning ISE: In-service education SD: Staff development
Definitions CPD is the process that professionals engage in to maintain and update professional competency throughout their careers. CPD is a personal commitment to keeping your professional knowledge up to date and improving your capabilities. CPD is the means by which members of a profession maintain, improve and broaden their knowledge and skills and develop the personal qualities required in their professional lives.
Definitions CPD is defined as a commitment to structured skills enhancement and personal or professional competence. CPD can be defined as the conscious updating of professional knowledge and the improvement of professional competence throughout a person s working life. It is a commitment to being professional, keeping up to date and continuously seeking to improve. CPD is the purposeful maintenance and improvement of a professional s knowledge and skills to remain competent in their chosen profession for the benefit of themselves, their patients or clients and the wider profession.
Why engage in CPD? One of the shared ethical mandates for health professionals is a commitment to competence. Becoming competent and maintaining competence requires ongoing, lifelong learning as new knowledge, understanding and experience require new ways of doing things. As a professional, you have a responsibility to keep your skills and knowledge up to date. CPD helps you turn that accountability into a positive opportunity to identify and achieve your own career objectives. The credibility of a profession is based on the willingness of each professional to embrace new skills, knowledge and experience
Why engage in CPD? Life long learning is a hallmark of committed and competent health professionals. Ongoing learning, both formal and informal, is required to maintain clinical competence and acquire new knowledge and skill. The knowledge and evidence base health professionals need to perform clinical practice and other roles are constantly advancing, more rapidly today than ever. CPD is a critical mechanism in ensuring that all members of the health professions are able to deliver high quality care and services and keep pace with health care developments that affect their practice.
Why engage in CPD? The knowledge needed to function effectively as a health professional continues to expand and change while consumer demand and expectations continue to increase. Registered health practitioners, including nurses and midwives, have a professional obligation to maintain their competence and to aim for continuous improvement in the standard of service they provide.
What are the principles of CPD? CPD is a continuous process and actively seeks to improve skills, knowledge and performance. Learning needs should be defined and agreed in collaboration with line manager but owned and managed by the individual learner. CPD should be based on a rigorous and continuous analysis of professional learning needs. CPD activities should be planned in advance through a personal development plan, and should reflect and be relevant to current and future professional practice and performance.
What are the principles of CPD? CPD acknowledges varying learning styles and includes a wide range of formal and informal learning activities. The key principles of CPD are that it is self-directed; that it is based on learning needs identified by the individual; builds on an individual s existing knowledge and experience; links an individual s learning to their practice; and includes an evaluation of the individual s development. CPD requires professionals to identify their learning needs based on an evaluation of their practice against recognised professional standards; develop a learning plan based on the needs identified; participate in CPD activities which meet these learning needs; and reflect on the value of these activities to their practice.
What constitutes CPD? formal educational programs short courses (face to face or online) presenting at or attending conferences, seminars or workshops publishing articles reading professional journals and books keeping a self reflection journal developing policies, protocols or guidelines supervised practice for skills development acting as a mentor or preceptor conducting research participating in committees (eg quality improvement, occupational health and safety)
Who is responsible? employers (public or private) regulatory bodies professional associations governments individuals
Why mandatory? Governments, regulatory bodies, employers, and professional associations all have a responsibility to ensure services provided are safe and protect the public. They have to demonstrate accountability. Individuals have an ethical responsibility to their patients and clients, their professions, and themselves to practice competently and safely. CPD should be an integral part of their professional life whether voluntary or mandatory.
How much is enough? There should be a minimum requirement, but there is no maximum. Requirements for health professionals vary globally from the equivalent of 20 hours annually to 50 hours annually.
CPD points or CPD hours? Generally, one CPD point = one hour of active learning. Awarding CPD points for learning activities requires the development of a formal process which involves personnel, time and cost. Specifying a minimum number of hours of CPD activity is a satisfactory first step.
Accredit or not? It would be impossible to accredit all CPD activity as CPD activities should embrace both formal and informal (self-directed and experiential) learning. Accepting only accredited CPD activities diminishes the value of self-directed (reading journals, presenting at conferences, publishing articles) and experiential learning that takes place in the workplace (supervised clinical learning). Both accredited and non-accredited CPD activities should be encouraged and valued.
Accredit or not? Accreditation of CPD learning requires the development of a formal process, establishing accreditation criteria and ongoing evaluation of applications which involves personnel, time and cost. Likewise, the accreditation of providers of CDP learning activities requires the development of a similar formal process. Is it the responsibility of a regulatory body to accredit CPD activities or encourage the development of an external body to undertake this function?
Monitoring compliance? Each nurse or midwife monitored or a meaningful random sample? What evidence should each nurse and midwife provide? Establishing penalties for non compliance and an appeals process and criteria. Collecting statistics, evaluating the process and measuring outcomes.
Monitoring compliance? CPD requirements must be: reasonable, achievable, fair, accessible to all (includes cost considerations), transparent, flexible, and inclusive (avoid monopoly).
Monitoring compliance? CPD offerings must be: relevant, current, available, accessible, and affordable.
Establishing CPD is a staged process
A process for establishing CPD 1. Prepare your arguments and your brief. 2. Develop and implement a communication strategy. 3. Develop your CPD policy. 4. Develop your CPD guidelines. 5. Make any legislative change. 6. Take small steps moving forward toward your goal. 7. Remember: the process should be reasonable, achievable, fair, accessible, transparent, flexible, and inclusive. 8. CPD should be relevant, current, available, accessible and affordable.
Draft CPD Toolkit 1. Background information. 2. Development, implementation and evaluation of CPD activities. 3. Web links for CPD activities. 4. Web sites for global standards, competencies and resources. 5. Sample CPD forms.