Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Find out about the Continuing Professional Development scheme
Find out about the Continuing Professional Development scheme
Continuing Professional Development, or CPD, is an integral part of your professional life as a chiropractor. In order to maintain and enhance your professionalism you are expected to continually update your skills and knowledge, enabling you to deliver high-quality care to your patients and practise safely and effectively.
We have produced a brief guide on completing your CPD for 2019/20. Please read this before you complete your CPD summary on the online portal.
We expect that all registered chiropractors (whether practising or non-practising) will keep up-to-date with developments within the profession. This is to ensure that they are practising in both their patients and their own best interests. The CPD scheme is our way of checking that chiropractors are continually broadening and deepening their knowledge and our legislation, or CPD rules, set out the annual requirements of all chiropractors.
During the pandemic we appreciate that CPD opportunities are mainly online through professional associations and the Royal College of Chiropractors. Learning with others can also be informal, for example through virtual meetings to discuss cases with colleagues.
Registrants can apply to have all or part of their learning requirement potentially waived if there are exceptional circumstances and we accept applications for a waiver via the online portal - further details can be found below.
If you have any any questions about CPD you can email us: cpd@gcc-uk.org.
The GCC CPD scheme provides a structure for you to follow to satisfy the statutory CPD rules. The basic requirements of this programme are that each year you:
In addition, the CPD activity you undertake:
Learning with others can include both formal learning, such as seminars and lectures, as well as informal learning, which includes clinical audit.
A few pointers to help you get your summary right first time
CPD for new registrants or those re-joining the register
Our rules require that you only need to submit 2.5 hours for each full month of the CPD year that you are registered. This means that if you joined the register on 1 January, you will need to have completed 8 months of CPD, which amounts to 20 hours in total. In all cases half of the CPD requirement must include learning with others, so for the example about, the registrant would need to complete a minimum 10 hours with others.
If you are a recent graduate and are taking part in the Royal College of Chiropractors’ Post-Registration Training Programme, you can include most of that activity as part of your CPD, the only exception being the business development training
A key aspect of reinforcing and deepening the learning gained from your CPD activity is reflective evaluation. Along with the other healthcare regulators, the GCC is committed to supporting reflective practice among registrants, and the CPD reporting form is designed to assist you with this. We will be providing registrants with separate, wider-ranging guidance on reflective practice in due course.
You might find it helpful to discuss with others - colleagues, peers or those whose role is to facilitate learning and development - the learning and development opportunities that are likely to be most effective in meeting your learning objectives, although this would not form part of your CPD itself.
Such discussions might usefully consider:
You can find further information on the Continuing Professional Development scheme in our guidance. Submission of a CPD summary is only accepted via the GCC portal.
CPD summaries must be completed onine only, annually before 30 September, which is one month following the end of the CPD year.
We have produced a brief guide to help you in completing the online summary.
While we audit only a small proportion of summaries, we always encourage registrants to upload evidence of the learning with others they have done at the time they fill in the form as it is easier than doing so some months later.
We appreciate that registrants will occassionally have difficulty in completing their summary or learning due to unforeseen events and that's why the scheme allows the Registrar to waive part or all of a registrants learning for one year if they have exceptional circumstances.
For registrants who are going through difficult times that prevent them from undertaking learning activities, our rules allow us the waive all or part of the learning for a CPD.
What can I do if I haven’t completed all or part of the CPD requirement by the end of the CPD year?
In certain circumstances the Registrar may exercise a discretion to waive all or part of a registrant’s CPD requirement or allow longer for CPD to be completed if exceptional circumstances have prevented you from completing your CPD by the end of the CPD year.
When might the Registrar use his/her power of waiver?
Ill health and bereavement are both generally acceptable. However, all applicants are considered on a case by case basis.
What is not considered as an exceptional circumstance?
The following list gives details of some circumstances that are not generally considered to be exceptional and for which CPD is unlikely to be waived:
How do I apply for waiver of my CPD?
If you have not been able to do some or all of your CPD because of exceptional circumstances, you can apply for a waiver via the portal. Once signed in go to My CPD Summary and click the waiver link to complete the details and providing evidence. You will be asked to confirm the number of hours you have not been able to complete, this is because the Registrar will need to know how many hours he is being asked to waive.
What form of evidence is acceptable?
The following table gives details of some forms of evidence that we are likely to accept. In some circumstances that Registrar may ask to see evidence of a specific course that you booked.
Circumstances | Evidence which is likely to be acceptable |
---|---|
Long term illness | A medical report or letter from the medical practitioner responsible for your care, confirming the nature of the illness, the date you became ill and also when you may be able to undertake CPD and fill in your paperwork again. |
Personal circumstances | An original medical report along the lines above. Certified copy of Death certificate in case of bereavement |
Family illness | A medical certificate or letter from the medical practitioner responsible for the care of the patient, confirming the nature of the illness. |
Maternity/ Paternity | A letter confirming the period of leave from your employer, documentation showing maternity/ paternity pay, or a GP letter. |
Each year every registrant must complete half of the learning requirement with others. For most registtrants that means at last 15 hours in total must be with others.
While learning can take place in a formal setting, such as a lecture or seminar, it can also be informal. We accept many different forms of informal learning, and examples would include:
However, it's important to remember the requirement to keep some evidence to show they have done this learning in case we audit their CPD.
As evidence of informal learning we suggest making a quick note of the key matters discussed, the date, number of hours and those attended. Then ask all of those in attendance to sign the note and email a copy to each one, that way everyone can upload it when they fill in their summary.
We have compiled the following table, which you may find helpful. It outlines some of the commonly noted activities that we can only accept as CPD learning activities if the learning outcomes are specified.
Example Activity |
To be a CPD learning activity you must... |
Using social media | tell us how you are learning and developing through this activity |
Spine checks | tell us about the time you spent offering spine checks at a community event (for example) – and what you learnt while you were there |
Voluntary work | tell us about how the learning from your volunteering has contributed to your professional learning and development |
Committee work |
let us know about your work with a committee and describe how it contributes to your or the wider profession’s learning and development |
Teaching | ensure your own learning and development is being taken forward; it is not enough to repeat a session/teach a class as usual |
Gaining practice building information | ensure this is not solely for business (as opposed to learning) purposes, for example finding out how to increase your patient numbers to maximise business growth |
Visiting exhibition stands at conferences | discuss and/or think about what you are seeing on the stands, rather than just having a look |
All chiropractors registered with us must complete 30 hours of CPD each year to stay on the register. This involves filling in a CPD summary and giving information of the learning they have done.
Each year we ask a sample of chiropractors to send in evidence of their learning so that we can check broad compliance with our CPD scheme. We do this by randomly selecting a number of chiropractors and asking them to send us the evidence to show they completed at least 15 hours of learning with others that they gave on their CPD summary.
The following questions are for chiropractors who have been randomly selected as part of the CPD audit process.
Why don't you ask for evidence of learning alone?
We recognise that CPD covers both self-directed learning, for example reading books or researching topics, and learning with others. However, since we cannot check information on self-directed learning, we ask for documentary evidence of learning undertaken with others.
What evidence must I send?
All evidence of the time you spent learning with others must be from a third party who was involved with the learning activity you completed. If it was a formal event, such as a seminar or lecture, then it must be from the organisers of the event. If it was informal, such as case discussion with colleagues, then the evidence would need to be from one of your colleagues present at that discussion.
Any evidence you send us must include:
your name as it appears on the register, the date, or range of dates, of the learning activities, the title of the activities, or if the learning was informal, then a brief description of the contents, confirmation of your attendance
Evidence can be in the form of a certificate, signed letter, or an email from the person verifying your CPD. Emails must be sent directly to us: cpd@gcc-uk.org
What can't I send as evidence?
Please note we do not accept the following as evidence of CPD:
course notes textbooks receipts or invoices of any kind.
How do I send evidence?
You can upload evidence of your learning via the portal in the same place that you complete your CPD record summary.
What happens if I don't send in my CPD evidence?
If we do not receive the evidence to verify 15 hours of learning with other people by 30 September, and you do not have exceptional circumstances that would allow the Registrar to waive the requirement for that year, you may be removed from the register.
Each year there will be a small number of cases where registrants have not met the requirements of the CPD scheme, or they have not submitted a CPD record summary at all.
In these cases, we always attempt to open a dialogue with the chiropractor to resolve any issues. However, in instances where registrants do not engage with the process, or their CPD does not meet the expected standard, the Registrar will have little option but to remove them from the register.
In these cases, the registrant will always be given the opportunity to engage with the process so that the Registrar may take as much information into account as possible on which to base his decision.
In the unlikely event that a registrant’s name is removed from the register for failing to comply with the CPD requirements, an option will be open to them to appeal the Registrar’s decision. An appeal must be lodged within 28 days from the date of the removal notice. Further information on the appeals process can be found here.
Read the report from a study carried out by The Royal College of Chiropractors (RCC) on behalf of the General Chiropractic Council: Results, Recommendations & Learning 2018-19
This section outlines what you need to do if you wish to change your registration status or leave the register.
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