Home
> About the GPhC
> Standards and policy
> Continuing professional development
Continuing professional development
Statutory continuing professional development (CPD) will be implemented when the GPhC opens in 2010.
It has been agreed as part of the transition arrangements that any records kept by registrants to meet the requirements of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) mandatory CPD programme can be submitted to the GPhC. Existing CPD records will be transferred to the GPhC as part of the transfer of regulatory assets covered in the draft Pharmacy Order 2009.
Standards, criteria and framework
As well as setting new, high-level standards for CPD for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians and producing new guidance on how registrants might meet those standards, the GPhC is also required to publish new criteria for the review of records and to introduce a new CPD framework.
Together, the standards, criteria and framework will define:
- the amount and type of CPD to be undertaken and recorded in relation to general registration and in relation to any annotations
- the information to be provided and the way in which this should be done
- the process for calling in and reviewing records
- the standards against which the records will be reviewed
- the sanctions that will be available in relation to records that do not meet those standards (this will include a hierarchy of sanctions — from re-submission of records to removal from the register)
- provisions for appeal against decisions relating to registration.
The relevance of CPD
The draft Pharmacy Order 2009 requires the GPhC to ensure that registrants undertake CPD that is relevant to safe and effective practice, to their individual learning needs and to their scope of practice.
This means that a registrant working in industry, for example, should undertake CPD that reflects this area of practice — unless they are also undertaking locum work or are responsible for the care or assessment of patients, in which case they will need to show that they have also completed CPD that is appropriate to technical and clinical skills.