Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the planned acquisition of knowledge, experience and skills and the development of personal qualities throughout the working life of an individual. CPD should be a normal part of every professional’s work in order to maintain competence and keep abreast of new developments.
Ideally, CPD programmes should be promoted and managed on a departmental basis within places of work, perhaps as part of a wider Professional Development Record (PDR) or similar, and should encompass, where appropriate, scientific, technical, clinical, and more general matters.
Carrying out CPD enables you to manage your own development at work. It helps you to document and review your progress. One advantage of this is that it can help identify gaps in your knowledge which you can address with further learning and development. It also means that you can identify and celebrate your achievements.
CPD is linked to registration and it is compulsory for IPEM members who are registered with the Science Council, the Engineering Council and/or the RCT to maintain a record of CPD in order to stay registered. This means any IPEM member who is registered as CSci, RSci or RSciTech or CEng, IEng or EngTech will be automatically signed up for the IPEM CPD Scheme.
All IPEM full members and RCT registrants confirm that they are carrying out CPD and maintaining a continuous, up to date and accurate record of their CPD activities by renewing their membership and registration each year. Any member of IPEM can also register for IPEM's CPD Scheme. The scheme has been developed in order to contribute to the promotion of undertaking CPD and the recording thereof and allows registrants to plan what they need to learn and to record it afterwards. A vital part of this process is then to reflect on what you have learnt, achieved or changed following the learning activity.
The most important aspect of CPD is the outcome of the activity for an individual rather than the length of time engaged in it. Learning outcomes and, where relevant, their application to practice should be recorded for each piece of CPD undertaken. Individuals should choose CPD activities that contribute to the quality of their practice and service delivery, and benefit the service user, whether patients, colleagues or students. In addition, CPD activities should cover a mixture of different learning methods.
CPD Audit
The HCPC audits a sample of CPD records on their register every two years whilst the other bodies carry out an annual audit. The IPEM CPD Scheme has been designed to fulfil the requirements of these regulatory and registration bodies.
mycareerpath®
We are delighted to inform members that we have chosen the mycareerpath® online professional development system, designed and managed by the Engineering Council, to plan, evidence and record professional development.