Do I have to do 50 credits of CPD every year?
This Blog clears the myth that you have to do 50 credits of CPD every year for your medical appraisal.
From: RCGP-Revalidation-Mythbusters-2016.pdf
The emphasis for CPD is on the quality of reflection on what has been learned and the impact on quality of care, not quantity of credits documented.
In fact, it is impossible to put a number on the credits that you need to do to keep up-to-date and fit to practise. The GMC requires you to do enough CPD to keep up-to-date across your whole scope of work but they do not attempt to define or require a quantity. An average of 50 credits for every twelve months in work is an RCGP recommendation, provided to help you to calibrate what is right for you as an individual GP, and not a GMC requirement. If you meet this recommendation your portfolio will not need any additional scrutiny of your CPD. If you do not meet this recommendation, then it is likely that your RO will want to understand exactly why you believe that your (more limited) CPD is sufficient to keep you up-todate and fit to practise across the whole of your scope of work.
In an ideal world, every doctor would ‘know’ instinctively exactly how much CPD they need to do as an individual to keep up-to-date. In practice, the RCGP recommendation that you demonstrate 50 credits of CPD is a pragmatic attempt to set a level that is reasonable and proportionate as a benchmark. It is a recommendation, not a requirement, and relates to the current Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) recommendations for all doctors to try to ensure that there is a level playing field for everyone (which is also only a recommendation and is currently under review).
The RCGP recommends that those who have a restricted scope of work should discuss with their appraiser what constitutes sufficient CPD to keep up-to-date at what they do – which will vary according to the scope of work – and to agree this with their responsible officer if necessary. For example, those who were historically GPs but now have a very restricted role providing only family planning services, will follow the recommendations of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) for their CPD and will not need to complete 50 credits to demonstrate that they are fully up-to-date across the whole of their scope of work. However, GPs who wish to remain entitled to undertake undifferentiated primary care sessions (see glossary), need to keep up-to-date across the whole of the GP curriculum in order to be safe to undertake such work.
From: RCGP-Revalidation-Mythbusters-2016.pdf
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