What should be recorded?

If you’re using the online Professional Development Record, you can enter your CPD activities in any order, and it will guide you to pick the types of activity from a pick list. You can then sort the columns however you wish, by activity type, by date, subject area, location, or hours spent. You can also see at a glance from your summary record if you have uploaded further files, or entered notes against each activity.

If you’re using the printed version of the CPD Record Card, follow the headings on the table to give brief descriptions of the CPD you have undertaken. Under the heading "Where undertaken/Provider name" indicate not only the location, but also the name of the CPD provider or institution involved. For the subject area, it may be helpful to group different activities together under subheadings, e.g. clinical, non-clinical, practice or other management development activities.

Time is considered to be the simplest way to record CPD activities. It’s not always easy to measure the time spent on development activities, but an estimate of time (in whole hours) should be shown in the ‘hours’ column. If you’re working towards an external qualification, or taking part in a nationally accredited distance learning programme that includes interaction with tutors and others, include the name of the qualification towards which you are working, and the name of any courses you attend. Attendance at a whole day conference or course would normally constitute seven claimable hours; an evening meeting would normally count for 1 - 2 hours – but it’s up to you to be able to justify the number of hours you are claiming.