Carrying out Continued Professional Development (CPD) is crucial for professionals to maintain high standards of practice, skills development and the delivery of safe services to the public and 2015-16 looks set to be a record year for pharmacists complying with their statutory CPD requirements in Northern Ireland.
Only seven notices for removal due to non-submission have been issued (0.3% of registrants). This compares to 31 notices of removal and 26 actual removals for non-compliance in 2014/-15.
In November 2015, the Pharmaceutical Society NI introduced a new online CPD process for the pharmacy profession. We are very pleased with how registrants have engaged with the new CPD system, with record numbers, over 98%, of CPD portfolios being submitted online.
231 registrants (10%) are having their CPD portfolios sampled and assessed as part of our quality assurance and audit process – the assessment results will be available in August 2016.
The public should take confidence from these record levels of compliance in relation to pharmacists’ CPD in Northern Ireland.