Author: Louise Coleman, Professional Officer for Education and Accreditation, SCoR
All radiographers will know within a matter of days if they’ve been selected by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) to have their CPD audited. Are you prepared?
Audit submissions must evidence that the registrant meets the Standards of CPD. Registrants must:
1. maintain a continuous, up-to-date and accurate record of their CPD activities
2. demonstrate that their CPD activities are a mixture of learning activities relevant to current or future practice;
3. seek to ensure that their CPD has contributed to the quality of their practice and service delivery;
4. seek to ensure that their CPD benefits the service user;
5. upon request, present a written profile (which must be their own work and supported by evidence) explaining how they have met the standards for CPD.
Standards 3 and 4 are the important ones, the rest can be evidenced by submitting your profile and examples of your CPD.
Getting selected for audit isn’t as bad as you might think, as long as you’re prepared. If you get selected the top ten tips below will help you create a successful submission.
1. Get started as soon as possible, especially if your CPD hasn't been recorded and reflected on in a systematic way.
2. Make a timetable or plan for completing the submission, and stick to it! Aim to complete it by the end of January so you've time to review it and ask a colleague or two to read it through critically, and proof read it for you.
3. Contact the HCPC if you think you have valid reasons why you don't feel able to make the CPD audit return. Do this as soon as possible.
4. Review the information the HCPC sent you. The leaflet at the bottom of this page tells you exactly what you need to do. Highlight or underline the important points so you can find them again. There’s also some good videos here: http://www.hcpc.org.uk/registrants/cpd/.
5. Tell your colleagues you've been selected – they’ll be sympathetic and they could well benefit from your experience if they get selected in the future.
6. Create a new audit report in CPD Now – it’ll do the hard work for you and create the list of CPD activities you’ve done.
- From the homepage, use the My HCPC tile to create a new report. Ensure you select the correct audit period dates.
7. Review the CPD profile that CPD Now creates – it contains all the CPD you’ve recorded within the dates you specified when you created the report. Are there any gaps? If there are, enter explanations for them in the text box below your profile.
8. Review all the CPD you’ve identified, recorded and evaluated in the last two years. Pick some of them to link to the application – the HCPC doesn’t specify how many but we suggest six. Ensure you’ve stated clearly how your CPD evidence meets the HCPC Standards of CPD. Have you used the terminology of the standards within your CPD evaluations? Make it easy for the CPD Assessor to pick out the elements they’re looking for by using the same terminology.
9. Adhere to the word limits when writing your summary of work practice and personal statement. Aim to meet the limits. If you write too much there’s a risk you’re not writing clearly and concisely. If you write significantly less than the word limit you may not be including sufficient information for the Assessor to make a decision about the appropriateness of your CPD.
10. Print your CPD Now HCPC report to a printer or to a PDF document and send/email it to the HCPC.
- Don’t forget to print, or attach linked files to your email.
CPD doesn’t end with the audit submission. You could also work with your union learning rep and set up a CPD club so you and your colleagues will be prepared for the 2017 audit. Don’t have a union learning rep? Think about volunteering to become one.
If you didn’t use CPD Now to create your submission, resolve to do better next time. Logon and become a regular user, more than 50 % of SCoR members use the system: www.sor.org/cpdnow. It’s also essential to use CPD Now if you’re going to apply for advanced, consultant or practice educator accreditation.