New survey of members' CPD underway

Following our survey of 1,000 randomly selected veterinary surgeons last year to monitor levels of continuing professional development undertaken by the profession, we have decided to repeat the exercise again in order to compare the results.

One of the ten guiding principles of the RCVS Guide to Professional Conduct is that members should maintain and continue to develop their professional knowledge and skills.

Our policy on continuing professional development (CPD) includes undertaking periodic monitoring of members' CPD Record Cards and, in time, most members working in practice will have their CPD records checked as part of the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme inspection process.

However, as not all members come under this scheme, we consider it to be important to undertake periodic CPD monitoring across the whole of the profession.

The sample selected last year has also been included in this year's survey, together with a further 1,000 members selected at random from the RCVS Register of [Practising] Members.

This exercise will help us to gather information on the extent to which members are recording their CPD and the type of professional development activities that members typically record.  This will be valuable as the profession prepares for the possible introduction of mandatory CPD in the future.

Although RCVS has always promoted participation in CPD, we are at a stage now where this is even more crucial.  It is possible that CPD will become mandatory under new legislation and members need to prepare for this by ensuring not only that they keep themselves up to date, as many do, but also that they can account for how they are maintaining their competence.

Any member who has been selected to take part should please return the required information by 15 August 2005 to the Education Department, RCVS, 62-64 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AF or by email to [email protected].

Read more about CPD and download a copy of the CPD Record Card