NB: Requirements for the current PCS year are 40 CPD credits and 1 clinical/practice audit
Internal CPD credits relate to internal practice evaluation and development and all doctors are required to record a minimum of 20 internal CPD credits per PCS year. These can be recorded with 1 hour of activity = 1 CPD credit. Examples include:
Activities which can be recorded include (but are not limited to):
- Case presentation: presenting particular patient scenarios as a way of informing others about approaches to care/treatment. This can be a two-way process and include feedback on care or treatment regimes
- Clinical case discussion: where a discussion takes place with another healthcare professional regarding clinical issues and approaches to a patient's treatment and care
- Clinical club: forming a club with other GP colleagues in your locality for regular clinical case discussions
- Clinical risk meeting: for example, where a GP/GP practice develop a plan to deal with seasonal epidemics (e.g. influenza)
- Committee participation: the ICGP PCS committee has agreed that this can be recorded for 1 internal CPD credit per meeting (to a maximum of 6 per year)
- Locum handover: discussing patient cases, files and updates on the practice
- Patient survey: where a survey is conducted to obtain patient feedback (e.g. on the practice, waiting times, friendliness of staff, care provided etc.) View a sample survey template.
- Peer review group: where patient cases/issues/practice issues are presented to peers who provide comments and advice and suggest alternative approaches to care and treatment. CME small groups act as a peer support/review group.
- Practice-based meeting: practices often hold regular meetings to discuss patient issues, attendance at courses & how to implement findings to improve patient care. Our Template Section can help you.
- Professional Development Plan (PDP): please see www.icgp.ie/pdp for more details
- Quality improvement process: review of an approach to care/treatment, etc. and implementation of outcomes
- Significant Event Analysis: a template is available in our Template Section.
Remember! If you take learning back from a meeting and make subsequent changes to your practice as a result, you can record this for internal credits
NB: Don't forget to always retain evidence to support your recorded activities. When recording internal CPD to your ePortfolio, you will need to enter a description (min. 50 characters) into the description box.
Evidence includes, at a minimum, the topics reviewed/discussed, the number of people in attendance (where relevant) and any practice changes made as a result of the activity.