There are fewer than seven months left until almost 40,000 dental care professionals (DCPs) come to the end of their first five year cycle of continuing professional development (CPD) – and the General Dental Council is reminding them to log their hours.
CPD is a legal requirement. On 31 July 2013 they must have completed 150 hours of CPD. They will then have until 28 August 2013 to declare the hours that they have completed or risk losing their GDC registration.
Recording and submitting CPD
It is important that registrants keep their CPD records up-to-date and safe, as they may be asked to submit proof and to send in their verifiable CPD certificates.
How to record my CPD?
Registrants can log their CPD hours at any time using an eGDC account, but they should also keep a written record of all the CPD that they do.
Anyone can download a recording form from the GDC website http://www.gdc-uk.org/Dentalprofessionals/CPD/Documents/GDC%20CPD%20log%202011_FINAL.pdf .
CPD records must be kept for five years after the end of the cycle in which they were completed, as registrants may be selected for audit.
Who’s declared what so far?
• 14,831 (37%) DCPs have logged more than the minimum hours (including 50 verifiable)
• 4,423 (11%) DCPs have logged no hours
• Dental Technicians are currently the least likely to have logged their hours – 22% having not yet declared any.*
*Source – GDC database 18 December 2012
Have your say
As part of the GDC’s on-going review of its CPD requirements a consultation is currently underway asking for views on the proposals to update our mandatory CPD scheme. Anyone wishing to take part should visit www.gdc-uk.org/haveyoursay
The public consultation proposals include:
- Developing learning outcomes for CPD linked to the GDC standards
- Annual mandatory CPD declarations
- Embedding personal development planning into the scheme
- New minimum CPD hours requirement.