Better Health For All

Each year, members of FPH are required to submit a CPD (continuing professional development) return to confirm that they have undertaken CPD activities related to their professional competence and PDP during the previous CPD year. This could be activities like attending a course to learn more about the field of public health relevant to their job role, teaching, audit, reading articles or perhaps getting involved with one of FPH’s many special interest groups.

The CPD requirements of the GMC, and in line with the UKPHR, expect registrants to:

reflect on what you have learnt from your CPD activities and record whether your CPD has had any impact (or is expected to have any impact) on your performance and practice. This will help you assess whether your learning is adding value to the care of your patients/residents and improving the services in which you work.

This is confirmed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and has been adopted and approved by FPH for all our members.

Once the returns have been submitted, around 20% of FPH members are selected to be audited to make sure their reflective notes meet the required standard (in 2019 this is reducing to around 10%).

We are pleased to report that the CPD audit for the year 2017/18 is now complete so we are writing this blog to share feedback with our members. We also want to give advice that will help members submit a successful return in future years.

How many FPH members submitted satisfactory returns?

We are delighted to report that 92% of audit submissions were found to be satisfactory, which is 2% higher than last year. We were also pleased to see that more FPH members are making use of the PDP (personal development plan) element of the online CPD diary. This is something we’ll be encouraging more of our members to do because it helps to explicitly demonstrate the link between CPD and their PDP.

Was there a common reason why CPD returns were unsatisfactory? 

The most common reason CPD returns were assessed as unsatisfactory was because reflective notes were not of a good enough standard.

How do we determine if a reflective note is satisfactory or not?  

FPH’s online CPD diary provides a framework of four questions to help guide members when reflecting on their CPD activities. They are:

1. Why did I choose this activity for my CPD?
2. What did I learn from this activity or event?
3. How am I going to apply this learning in my work?
4. What am I going to do in future to further develop this learning and/or meet any gaps in my knowledge, skills or understanding?

FPH members should reflect on their new learning by answering each of these four questions in the boxes provided.  On page 34 of the Faculty’s current CPD policy (and page 27 of the new policy), there is a very useful table which provides a summary of the characteristics of a good answer to these four questions, so you know what to include.

A satisfactory reflective note is one in which the responses to at least three of these elements are assessed to be either borderline or good.

Lastly, a common observation during the audit was that some of the reflective notes read more like ‘descriptive notes of a learning activity’ as they did not contain any genuine reflection. Reflecting on an activity (what I have learned and what I need to do as a result) is different from reporting on an activity (who did or said what).

You can find examples and tips on writing good reflective notes by clicking here.

We hope that you find this advice helpful and it’s useful when you use your online CPD diary. If you have any questions, please contact your local Regional CPD Adviser.  Contact details can be found here or to download the new CPD Policy, click here.

Written by FPH’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Committee.