Continuing Professional Development in 2023

Continuing professional development in 2023

Several changes have been made to requirements for CPD for medical practitioners this year. It’s time to select your CPD home.

The Medical Board of Australia has amended the requirements for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for medical practitioners. 

The new Registration Standard which applies from 1 January 2023 provides that medical practitioners must:

• Complete a minimum of 50 hours of CPD activities per year, 

• Complete a yearly written Professional Development Plan, and 

• Join a “CPD Home” by 1 January 2024. 

What is a CPD Home?

A CPD Home is an organisation that is accredited by the Medical Board of Australia’s accreditation authority, the Australian Medical Council (the AMC), to provide CPD programs for medical practitioners. A CPD Home may be an education provider, another organisation with a primary educational purpose or an organisation with a primary purpose other than education. 

All AMC-accredited specialist medical colleges will be CPD Homes.

What is a Professional Development Plan?

A Professional Development Plan is a written plan that outlines a medical practitioner’s learning goals relevant to their current and intended scope of practice and how they will achieve their goals. It consists of self-evaluation and reflection on learning goals and progress made in the CPD cycle, as well as the planned CPD activities to achieve learning goals in the current year. CPD homes may provide you with PDP templates or structures to construct your plans and the specific requirements around PDPs may differ slightly with each home. 

What changes have been made?

The changes to the Registration Standard are designed to assist medical practitioners to maintain professional currency and support their ongoing development through progressing personal and professional qualities necessary to their scope of practice. CPD Homes will assist medical practitioners to tailor CPD to their learning needs and instill a sense of confidence in the community to know that doctors are consistently improving their practice in an ever-changing field. 

The CPD homes will be created and accredited in 2022 and 2023 with a grace period of a year for doctors to join a CPD home by 1 January 2024. 

What does this mean for medical practitioners in 2023?

• Medical practitioners must complete a CPD program of an accredited CPD home or for doctors who have not selected their CPD home for 2023, continue their self-directed CPD under the existing 2016 CPD standard.

• For medical practitioners with specialist registration, their specialty College may be their CPD home or they can join another CPD home that is relevant to their scope of practice and meet its CPD requirements, the self-directed CPD they have been doing and find a CPD Home that offers CPD Programs relevant to their scope of practice.
Medical practitioners with more than one specialty or scope of practice are required to meet the CPD registration standard in each of their specialties or scopes of practice. If possible, practitioners can complete their CPD within a single CPD Home; however, if this is not possible, practitioners may need to partake in more than one program. 

• Medical practitioners with general registration (no specialist registration) should continue the self-directed CPD they have been doing and find a CPD Home that offers CPD Programs relevant to their scope of practice.  

• For doctors-in-training PGY3+, if they are in a specialist training program, their CPD requirements are covered by their training. If they are not in a specialist training program, they should undertake self-directed CPD and find a CPD Home that offers CPD Programs relevant to their scope of practice.

• For international medical graduates

– With limited registration in the specialist pathway: their College will be their CPD Home and the College CPD Program will meet their CPD requirements;
– With limited registration not in the specialist pathway: continue current arrangements and find a CPD Home that offers CPD programs relevant to their scope of practice;
– With provisional registration and not in an accredited intern position: continue current arrangements and find a CPD Home that offers CPD programs relevant to their scope of practice. 

The Registration Standard does not apply to: 

• Medical students

• Doctors-in-training who are in their intern or postgraduate year 2 positions participating in a structured program or accredited intern program

• Medical practitioners who have limited registration in the public interest or limited registration for teaching or research who have been granted registration for no more than four weeks

• Medical practitioners who are granted an exemption or variation from this standard by their CPD home 

• Medical practitioners with non-practising registration

What are the CPD requirements under the new Standard?

Medical practitioners must complete a minimum of 50 hours of CPD each calendar year and distribute these across three different CPD activities. The CPD must be relevant to their scope of practice, and it is important to note that doctors will need to meet the specific requirements of their individual CPD homes which may differ slightly. The CPD activity time requirements are as follows: 

• Education activities: minimum of 12.5 hours annually 

• Reviewing performance and measuring outcomes: minimum of 25 hours annually, with a minimum of five hours in each category

• The remaining 12.5 hours can be allocated to any type of CPD activity of the doctor’s choosing. 

Each CPD home will publish guidelines and examples of the types of activities that will constitute CPD. 

Medical practitioners will have to self-evaluate their CPD activity at the end of each year as they prepare their Professional Development Plan for the next year and retain records of their annual CPD activity for audit by their CPD Home and the Board. Records must be kept for three years after the end of each year.

Contributed by Dominique Egan, Director of Workplace Relations and Kristin Kendrick-Little, Paralegal

If you have any questions about how the changes apply to you, please contact the AMA (NSW) Workplace Relations team at workplace@amansw.com.au or on +61 2 9439 8822.