How to Calculate CPD Points for Your Healthcare Sector
Knowing how to calculate CPD points is essential for all healthcare professionals.
As defined by the CPD Certification Service, Continuing professional development (CPD) is the “holistic commitment of professionals towards the enhancement of personal skills and proficiency throughout their careers.”
CPD isn’t just important for career progression, however. It ensures you keep contributing meaningfully to your patients, your team and your profession.
For these reasons, CPD is a mandatory requirement for healthcare professionals.
As such, it’s of utmost importance that you’re clear on what your CPD points requirements are, as well as the parameters your professional body sets for attaining them.
Below, we clarify the CPD points system, clear up the confusion between CPD points, units and credits and explain how to calculate CPD points and hours.
What Are CPD Points?
A CPD point is a unit of measurement for professional training.
The CPD points system is used to keep track of all CPD training and activities an individual completes each year, what learning objectives have been met and what new skills each learner has acquired.
Organisations also use CPD points to quantify how much CPD their members need to complete within a given time period.
For example, doctors, surgeons and physicians typically need an average of 50 CPD points per year (250 over the course of five years), to maintain and improve their skills as medical practitioners.
Some professional bodies use the terms “CPD units” or “CPD credits” interchangeably with – or instead of – “CPD points”.
This can cause some confusion, but all terms – points, units and credits – refer to the same thing.
There is no difference between a CPD point and a CPD unit or credit, other than the terminology used.
How to Calculate CPD Points and CPD Hours
Another point of confusion is how CPD points relate to CPD hours.
In fact, some professional bodies and CPD course providers do not use the terms CPD points, units, or credits at all – just CPD hours.
The Royal College of Nursing, for example, requires nurses to complete 35 hours of CPD activities every three years to remain on the NMC register.
It’s estimated that around 95% of all professional bodies describe their continuing professional development requirements in CPD hours rather than points.
So, what’s a CPD hour?
According to the CPD Certification Service, “The definition of a CPD hour is the time spent for a delegate to be in ‘active learning’. Active learning defines the actual time spent learning something relevant for their continuing professional development objectives.”
How therefore, do you translate points into hours to make sure you’re on track to meet your requirements?
Luckily, the answer is simple – one CPD point/credit/unit typically equals one CPD hour.
Understanding the CPD Requirements for Your Role
CPD points requirements vary between healthcare roles and sectors.
There are over 120 professional healthcare bodies and associations with the majority having CPD policies, including:
- British Acupuncture Council (BAcC)
- The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP)
- The Acupuncture Association of Cartered Physiotherapists (AACP)
- The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
- The Royal College of Nursing
- The Nursing and Midwifery Council
- The General Medical Council
- The General Dental Council
- The General Optical Council
This means that almost every type of medical professional needs to complete some form of CPD to maintain and improve professional standards, show progress towards long-term goals and potentially remain registered as a healthcare practitioner.
Any activity that contributes to your professional learning and development can be considered eligible for CPD.
However, the activities should be relevant to your professional role, complement your practice and enhance the service you provide.
In addition, CPD activities must include a mixture of different types of learning, such as work-based learning, courses and workshops, self-directed learning and study – such as reading research papers, case studies, professional articles and books – and eLearning.
Earn Valuable CPD Points with Accredited CPD Training Courses from Health Med. Training Solutions
Regardless of where your role sits in the healthcare sector, it can feel like a real struggle to keep on top of your CPD requirements.
If you’re looking for a flexible method of earning CPD points at your own pace and in your own time, you should consider an online course.
Health Med. Training Solutions provides a range of fully certified online CPD courses that you can fit around your professional work commitments, shift patterns and personal life.
Our progressive eLearning courses are completely mobile – accessible via smartphone, tablet, or PC – created by professionals for professionals, designed to make the most of your professional development and are independently accredited by The CPD Certification Service.
Once you have completed each course module, there is a final exam and reflection questionnaire.
Upon successful completion, a personalised CPD certificate will be sent automatically to your given email address as validation that the learning has been completed.
Try our latest online courses Acuskinlift Method (by Dr John Tsagaris and Brett Robertson) and Acupuncture for Female Health (by Archna Patel).
Coming soon are courses by leading professors and doctors from a more biomedical stance. Register your interest here, or get in touch for more information.
