Changes to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for all dental registrants start in 2018.

The changes announced by the GDC will take place in January 2018 for dentists and August 2018 for dental care professionals.

What does it mean?

• An increase in the number of verifiable hours and the requirement to spread the hours more evenly across the five-year cycle (see details in the table below);
• A reduction in CPD hours overall following the removal of non- verifiable CPD;
• When paying the annual retention fee (ARF) a declaration is made of the CPD hours you have completed and that you are meeting the GDC’s requirements, including  their  learning outcomes;
• The requirement of a personal development plan (PDP). The hours required over a five-year cycle will be:

When?

All dentists will move to the new scheme on 1 January 2018 and all dental care professionals on 1 August 2018. There will be transitional arrangements for those who are mid-cycle on these dates and those registrants will have to complete some CPD based on the current scheme and some on the new scheme. The transitional arrangements are explained and a calculation tool is available on the GDC website: https://gdc.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/ecpdtool.

What will registrants need?

You will need to keep a CPD record. This must include:

• A personal development plan which details the CPD you plan to undertake and associated learning outcomes. This may evolve throughout your cycle.
• A log of completed activity, including date, number of hours and which learning outcome it covered.
• The evidence you have collected (e.g. a certificate) for each activity. More information is available on the GDC website: www.gdc-uk.org/professionals.

• The GDC provides a frequently asked questions section on this webpage: https://www.gdc-uk.org/professionals/cpd/enhanced-cpd.

A summary