DON’T BE AFRAID OF CPD

All professionals need to do CPD. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t have to be an expensive and time- consuming exercise. In fact much of it can be free. The first step on the road to CPD is to identify a learning need. The next step is to locate a source for that knowledge. Then that knowledge has to be put into practice. The final step involves reflection on what has been learnt and evidencing this in a portfolio. There is nothing to be afraid off.

BY BOB BRAMAH, EDITOR

INTRODUCTION Are you a member of a professional organisation such as the Sports Massage Association (SMA), the British Association of Sports Rehabilitators and Trainers (BASRAT), the Federation of Holistic Therapists (FHT), or the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP)? If you are, then you are required as a condition of membership to undergo continuous professional development (CPD). Do you worry about where you are going to find the time and the money to meet your obligations? Well don’t. It’s easy and it doesn’t need to cost a fortune. In fact it is so easy that whether or not you realise it you are clocking up CPD right now, as you read this article (and the rest of the magazine of course!).

LET’S START WITH A DEFINITION

BETTER AT WHAT YOU DO

CPD IS A ROUTE TO GETTING

The Health Professions Council (HPC) is the regulatory body for 14 health professions (listed in Box 1). Another three professions are listed as “aspirant” and yet more (BASRAT and the SMA to name but two) are going

Fully registered professionals (200,000 members) n Art therapists n Biomedical scientists n Chiropodists and podiatrists n Clinical scientists n Dieticians n Occupational therapists n Operating department practitioners n Orthopists

14

through the HPC’s approval process. It is a condition of registration of the HPC that members must comply with CPD requirements. Given the huge number of health professionals regulated by the HPC – physiotherapy alone contributes 42,000 members – it is a very powerful driver of CPD requirements. The HPC’s template for CPD is one that easily serves as a model for any profession, regardless of whether or not they currently hold HPC status. The HPC’s definition of CPD is: “A range of learning activities through which health professionals maintain and develop throughout their career to ensure they retain their capacity to practice safely, effectively and legally within their evolving scope of practise” (1). What that means in English is that the world of healthcare is rapidly changing. You have to run to keep up with it and you are never going to catch it – but you can’t stop trying! And indeed you shouldn’t stop trying because if you are any good as a professional in whatever trade you have chosen, you don’t need the HPC or any other regulatory body to force you to do CPD. It should be as routine as getting up and going to work

BOX 1: HPC-HEALTH PROFESSIONS COUNCIL

n Paramedics n Physiotherapists n Practitioner psychologists n Prosthetists n Radiographers n Speech and language therapists Aspirant professions n Hearing-aid dispensers n Psychotherapists and counsellors n Dance movement psychotherapists

sportEX dynamics 2010;23(Jan):14-18