Renewing & Enrolling on the PCS

The Irish College of GPs Professional Competence Scheme is suitable for GP specialists and those working 50% or more of their practice time in a General Practice setting. All enrolees must be registered with the Irish Medical Council at the time of enrolment.

The Medical Council requires that all registered doctors enrol on the Professional Competence Scheme that is most relevant to their scope of practice. If the Irish College of GPs scheme is not suitable for you, you can find details of the other schemes in operation on the Medical Council website here.

No. All registered medical practitioners are required to enrol on a Professional Competence Scheme (PCS) and meet the annual minimum requirement of CPD credits (including the minimum requirements in each credit category). This applies for all doctors, regardless of working status or Division. Those who quality as ‘not engaged in the practice of medicine’ can avail of a more flexible set of category requirements. Click here to read more about this ‘not engaged’ category.

A doctor on the General Division should enrol in the Professional Competence Scheme most relevant to their scope of practice. The Irish College of GPs PCS is suitable for those who are working 50% or more of their time in general practice. To enrol, click here. You will be asked to complete an application form which will be reviewed by a GP panel.

There are a range of schemes established by Postgraduate Training Bodies under arrangement with the Medical Council; if our scheme is not right for you, you can find details of other options here.

If a doctor is registered on the Specialist Division of the Register, they should contact their Postgraduate Training Body to begin the process of enrolment with a Professional Competence Scheme. To enrol with the Irish College of GPs, click here.

Some doctors no longer practice in the area of initial specialization or are not associated with a Postgraduate Training Body. Doctors in this situation should enrol on the scheme most relevant to their current scope of practice. The Irish College of GPs PCS is suitable for those who are working 50% or more of their time in general practice. To enrol, click here.

The Medical Council and new PCS Framework now require a distinction between doctors engaged and not engaged in the practice of medicine and the type of CPD activity they need to undertake. This provides greater flexibility and clarity to doctors to direct their own development and meet their annual PCS requirements. As part of the enrolment process you will be asked to declare whether or not you are engaged in the practice of medicine.

For the purpose of PCS, if you are involved in any of the following activities you are considered to be engaged in the practice of medicine.

• Involved in the act of diagnosing, treating, or managing illnesses and medical conditions, including telemedicine consultations
• Provide medical advice
• Develop and/or deliver medical education
• Prescribe medications
• Perform medical procedures
• Develop and/or implement preventative programmes (e.g. CDM)
• Conduct relevant medical research
• Take any other actions which require medical knowledge and skills

Please note that doctors who declare that they are not engaged in the practice of medicine when registering with the Medical Council are excluded from the entitlement to issue prescriptions.

Doctors will indicate if they are not engaged in the practice of medicine based on the list above at the time of enrolment or renewal on PCS. Doctors who declare they are not engaged have some flexibility around the Practice Review and Work-based Learning requirements but must still complete a minimum of 50 hours annually. Click here to see the annual requirements for “not engaged” doctors.

As long as your registration with the Medical Council is active you will need to continue to enrol on PCS and meet the yearly requirements even if you have retired from practice. 

If you have withdrawn from the Medical Council register, please let us know so we can update your record.

When you are completing your annual Retention of Registration form with the Medical Council, you will be asked to give the name of the Professional Competence Scheme (PCS) on which you are enrolled and the date on which you paid your enrolment fee for that year.

The Irish College of GPs, through our arrangements with the Medical Council, is required to forward a list of the MCRN for all doctors enrolled on a Scheme at key dates throughout the year.

No, if you are currently on a recognised Training Scheme, then you do not need to enrol on PCS as engagement in training is considered continuous professional development. You should enrol on a PCS within 30 days of completion of your Training.

All doctors working in Ireland for 30 days or more in a PCS year are obliged to enrol on an Irish PCS; this includes doctors remote consulting with patients based in Ireland.

Please click on the links below to access Irish Medical Council guidelines on remote consulting:

• https://www.medicalcouncil.ie/news-and-publications/publications/
• https://www.medicalcouncil.ie/existing-registrants-/telemedicine-a-guide-for-doctors/telemedicine-a-guide-for-doctors-registered-with-the-medical-council.html

Irish professional competence schemes run from 1 May to 30 April annually. All doctors registered with the Irish Medical Council (IMC) and practising in Ireland are legally obliged to enrol on a scheme each year, regardless of working status. If a doctor was enrolled on a previous PCS year but has not yet enrolled on the current one, then they are not considered to be enrolled on a PCS.

An easy way to ensure automatic annual enrolment is to set up a direct debit with the Irish College of GPs. Find the direct debit mandate form here. 

If you are unsure whether or not you are enrolled, you can check your ePortfolio. If you can access it, then you have enrolled on the current PCS year. If not, you will need to enrol through our Renew & Enrol section.

Your proof of enrolment on the current year of the scheme is your receipt, which is available to download from your ePortfolio as follows:

1. Log on to the Irish College of GPs website 
2. On your dashboard click My Receipts and scroll down to the Professional Competence section
3. Alternatively, open your ePortfolio and click Documentation on the right-hand side, then Receipts of Payment and scroll down to Professional Competence. Clicking on any given year will download the relevant receipt to your computer.

Although most doctors join the Register in June, it may be that someone registers at a different time of year, for instance if they have graduated from a training scheme or arrived from abroad. In this case, you will need to enrol on PCS within 60 days of registration with the Medical Council (or within 60 days of leaving the Trainee Register if you are completing GP training). 

If you are joining the Register after March 2 in a given year you do not need to enrol on the current year PCS, but can wait and enrol after May 1 for the new PCS year.

We advise that you record as many credits for the year as you are able, taking a proportional value of the yearly requirement as a guideline minimum. You may record non-training related activity back to 1 May, including activity completed while abroad, as long as it meets the standards for the category. A note will appear on your Statement of Participation for the year to confirm that you enrolled partway through the year. Please get in touch on professional.competence@icgp.ie if you need any support.