First HPC CPD audit to take place in 2008

The Health Professions Council (HPC) approved the standards of continuing professional development (CPD) on 19 July that will become a legal requirement for the future registration of 162,000 health professionals across the UK.

The HPC also confirmed the first audit of these standards will take place in August 2008, when chiropody and podiatry, and later, operating department practitioners will be asked to submit evidence of CPD activity

The first audit of speech and language therapy and the other 10 professions currently on the HPC register will take place in 2009.

The HPC says it will make information on how to record and submit evidence against these standards available by April 2006.

The standards, which apply to those in clinical practice, research, management and education, mean that health professionals will have to provide evidence of CPD relating to their previous two years of practice from the summer 2008.

The evidence will have to show that the CPD an individual has undertaken has contributed to the quality of their practice and demonstrates that it benefited the service user.