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CPD Requirements and Categories

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CPD Requirements and Categories

The revised Medical Council PCS Framework (May 2025) requires CPD to be undertaken in four categories. This page elaborates on each of the four categories with examples tailored to your work in General Practice. You are free to choose CPD activities that best suit your own needs and practice, however, please keep in mind that your CPD each year should

Professional Development Plan

Up to 5 credits

A Professional Development Plan is a flexible tool to help you identify and plan what you would like to do for CPD activity each PCS year. This is a requirement from the Medical Council but it is important to know that you will not be evaluated on whether you complete everything in the plan or how it compares to your recorded CPD. This is a self-directed process for which only you will be responsible, and should be guided by the overall goal of improving patient safety and care.

You will find an interactive PDP you can fill in on your ePortfolio, and 5 credits will be assigned automatically when you complete the four steps of the plan. Here are some examples of completed PDPs

Practice Review

Minimum 10 credits. Practice review is a new category that replaces the previous audit requirement, broadening the scope of reflective and quality improvement activities available to doctors. The 10 credits in this category are part of the overall 50 credit requirement. As a rule, 1 hour of activity = 1 credit. While clinical audit remains an option, practice review now also includes quality improvement initiatives and practice evaluation. This shift acknowledges that improving patient care involves more than just measuring outcomes—it requires a structured approach to assessing and enhancing clinical practice. It should be relevant to your own scope of practice and documented in a way that excludes any identifying information. There are a number of forms that your review can take:

  • A clinical audit is a process where you compare your practice to a set clinical standard, undertake changes to improve, and then re-audit to see what impact the changes made.

    → See the College’s Audit resources including templates and samples

  • Quality improvement is a methodology for identifying problems, testing solutions, and implement change that will improve patient outcomes and experiences.

  • A practice evaluation project would be a systematic assessment of the quality and effectiveness of care provided by an individual doctor or a group of doctors by members of the same profession or team, or by patients. Examples of practice evaluation may include:

    • Reviewing critical incidents and significant events to assess responses and identify areas for improvement,
    • analysing compliments and complaints to ensure policies are followed and necessary changes are implemented,
    • gathering structured feedback from colleagues, patients, or students,
    • conducting patient satisfaction surveys to evaluate and enhance the quality of care provided. 

    → Significant Event Analysis template (DOCX, 156KB)

  • Other activities may also be suitable, provided they contribute to learning and improving patient care and meet the requirement to complete at least 10 hours of practice review annually, with a focus on continuous improvement rather than identifying performance shortfalls.

    It will be necessary to upload supporting documentation for your chosen activity when recording it to the ePortfolio. When recording your Practice Review activity please be sure that you do not include any identifying patient information.

Work-based Learning

Minimum of 15 credits

GPs engage in learning every day in order to give their patients the best possible care. This category reflects that fact and covers much of what used to be known as internal, personal learning, and research and teaching CPD. Examples of activities you can record as Work-based Learning are below; in general, 1 hour of activity = 1 CPD credit.

Examples

    • Clinical case discussion, including a case conference or case presentation
    • Chart review or other structured review of records and processes of care
    • Practice management
    • Peer review meetings, including clinical clubs, one-to-one peer review, peer review groups
    • Clinical risk meetings
    • Committee Participation
    • Grand Rounds
    • Research and teaching, including in-practice tutorials, article publication, lecturing, participation in research, presentation at a scientific meeting, undergraduate teaching, peer review of texts
    • Locum handover meetings
      → Locum Handover Checklist template (DOCX, 192KB)
    • External meetings, including PCT/HSE meetings or multidisciplinary clinical activities (MDTs, MDMs)
      → Primary Care Team Meeting template (DOCX, 184KB)
    • Practice meetings
      → Practice Meeting template (DOCX, 185KB)
    • On demand learning, which does not qualify as Accredited CE (see below)
    • Personal learning, including journal clubs, online searches, reading, learning diaries, medical podcasts
    • Irish College of GPs roles, including serving as Examiner, Tutor, Fellow, Programme Director, question setting
    • GP Trainer activity
    • Accreditation visits
    • Standards Development
    • Management, policy, and advocacy
    • Reflection on health and wellbeing
    • Health, wellbeing and staff support meetings
    • Practice management systems enhancements
    • CME meetings (CME meetings qualify for 2 Work-based Learning credits)

    When recording Work-based Learning you should provide relevant details as evidence, such as time, place, topic(s) covered, an agenda, notes or minutes, as appropriate. For personal learning include the publication details of an article. Please be sure no identifying patient information is included in anything submitted as evidence.

Accredited CE Activity

Minimum of 20 credits

Courses, webinars, meetings, conferences, and other organised activities that have been accredited by the Irish College of GPs or another designated body can be recorded in this category. This could include CME small group meetings, conferences, courses, Faculty meetings, Forum distance learning, lectures, meetings, on-demand learning, webinars, seminars, workshops, and higher degrees. To be recorded in this category an activity must have accreditation as specified below.

The learning can be relevant to your scope of practice in a clinical sense, or it may address another of the Eight Domains, e.g. communications, management, etc.

To qualify for this category, an activity must be accredited in one of the following ways:

  1. Accredited for CPD by the Irish College of GPs or another Irish Postgraduate Training Body such as the Royal College of Physicians Ireland or the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland
  2. Course or module which is accredited by an Irish or UK University and is relevant to your scope of practice
  3. Accredited for CPD by an equivalent international body such as the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME), Royal College of GPs (RCGP), Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP), College of Family Physicians Canada (CFPC) 


Please contact us if you are unsure if a particular event or course would qualify for this category. Unaccredited events that are relevant to your scope of practice can be recorded under the Work-based Learning category instead.

When recording Accredited CE you must provide the certificate of attendance as evidence of completion.

→ Find upcoming events accredited by the Irish College of GPs

→ Find courses, webinars, and on-demand learning offered by the College

→ See our ePortfolio guides for help recording activity