Why CPD is so important for pharmacists
The President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Hemant Patel, emphasises the importance for practising pharmacists of getting to grips with the recording of continuing professional development before it becomes a mandatory requirement
The President: CPD improves practice and job satisfaction |
It has taken a long time for the potential of our profession to be
realised but now it is within our grasp. I am sure it is fortuitous,
but the milestones
of our current professional development seem to appear on a 10-year
cycle. First was the Nuffield report on pharmacy in 1986. The Society
followed
with Pharmacy in a New Age (PIANA), published in 1996. And now, as
we enter 2006, we have the new contracts for community pharmacy and Agenda
for Change in the NHS. We also have supplementary prescribing and,
most
recently, the announcement of independent prescribing by pharmacists.
These key developments are enabling the profession to complete progress
towards the strategic aims of Pharmacy in a New Age:
- The management of prescribed medicines
- The management of long-term
conditions
- The management of common ailments
- The promotion and support of healthy
lifestyles
- Advice and support
for other health professionals
The members who responded to the PIANA consultation made it clear that
they recognised the need for a comprehensive system for continuing professional
development (CPD) that would be mandatory for all members. We have achieved
that target. Not only has the profession introduced mandatory CPD but
the CPD framework and the division of the Register into practising and
non-practising sections were approved through consultation with the membership.
CPD became a professional obligation for practising members in January
2005, replacing the former requirement to undertake 30 hours of continuing
education each year. This new professional requirement will be strengthened
during 2006 by the legal force of the Section 60 Order under the Health
Act 1999, which will give the Society the power to call in CPD records
for review. This should begin in early 2007.
In contrast to some other professions, arrangements for CPD in pharmacy
are tried and tested. Not all professions piloted their CPD arrangements
before their introduction. Our pilot studies involved 500 pharmacists
and so we know that our CPD system is practical and usable by pharmacists.
Pharmacists have a choice of CPD recording system: paper or electronic.
Although they are free to use either system, the Society’s secure
CPD website has the additional advantage of secure record storage, even
if the computer crashes. More than 16,000 pharmacists have used this
facility and made CPD entries on the website, while many others are keeping
their records on paper or on their personal computers using the Society’s
CPD Desktop software. So it is possible to estimate that nearly half
of all practising pharmacists now keep CPD records.
This is a positive start for the profession and a testament to the work
of all those who have supported the introduction of CPD. The Society
has run workshops all over Britain to train more than 600 members who
in their turn have helped colleagues understand and practise CPD. We
have 21 CPD facilitators who run CPD sessions for the branches and we
have worked with pharmacy employers who have internal CPD arrangements
to ensure that pharmacists only have to keep one set of CPD records.
All of these are in addition to the work of the Society’s CPD staff
who continue to run many branch meetings and in-company workshops on
CPD.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that an unknown number of members
have yet to make a start on their CPD records. We recognise that some
pharmacists may need help to overcome the barriers to getting started.
As the profession enters the “new age” the new contracts
for community pharmacy with provision for advanced and enhanced services
provides many CPD opportunities as pharmacists ensure that they have
the competencies to deliver new roles. In the NHS, the implementation
of Agenda for Change provides a structure for the recognition of professional
competence and contribution to the service. It also provides a framework
for development from first registration through to consultant status,
ie,
a supporting framework for CPD throughout a whole career. And, of course,
CPD is a contractual requirement for pharmacists working in community
and the NHS as part of clinical governance arrangements.
Of course, not everybody has welcomed CPD. That is an inevitable consequence
of introducing a significant change. However, compared with the 8,000
pharmacists who responded positively to the consultation on CPD run in
The Journal in March 2003, the number who have expressed concerns about
the CPD framework is relatively small, especially when comments on registration
fees and non-practising status are excluded.
It is worth restating the strengths of the CPD recording system as these
can become lost among the adverse comment. CPD does not stand for clinical
professional development. Although the updating of clinical knowledge
and skills is an important element of CPD for pharmacists in clinical
practice, the CPD framework was designed to allow practising member working
in any sector of practice to record CPD based on their own personal practice.
Pharmacy is a diverse profession and that flexibility does introduce
a degree of complexity to recording CPD. As a user, I am confident that
any member should be able to use the recording format. Having said that,
we are aware that not all members agree and this is why the Council set
up a CPD recording working group at the meeting in October 2005.
Some members have concerns about the ability of the Society to review
their CPD and draw conclusions about their fitness to practise. When
the Society calls in CPD records for review, it will compare each entry
with the CPD good practice criteria published in the Plan and Record
document sent to every practising member. If CPD is carried out properly,
it will lead to incremental improvements in practice. This will be apparent
from the evaluation information contained in the CPD entry. Only the
pharmacist who makes the record will know the value of the CPD activity
they record. Eventually, if and when revalidation of pharmacists is introduced,
individual fitness to practise will be routinely assessed and the real
value of participation in CPD will become apparent.
Whenever I talk to colleagues in the profession about CPD they are clear.
All pharmacists undertake CPD in the practice of their profession. As
pharmacists, we are not used to recording CPD or to the idea of having
our records monitored by the Society. The Society has made a big investment
in CPD for the profession since starting in 1999 and we need to make
sure this we build upon what we have achieved. The early work on CPD
pilots provided a sound foundation for introducing CPD to the whole profession.
No system is absolutely perfect, especially at first. The CPD framework
will be reviewed and improved as we gain experience of using it and receive
feedback from the profession. The real benefits of CPD are in improved
practice and job satisfaction. The Council and I are determined to ensure
that these benefits are realised for the profession.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal