RCVS CPD Consultation opens today

Posted: 17 June 2016 at 9:48 am

As from Friday 17th June, the RCVS will be engaging in a six-week consultation with both veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses concerning their continuing professional development (CPD) and lifelong learning policy. The consultation will run to 5pm on Friday 29th July.

Currently, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) expects veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses to undertake 105 and 45 hours of CPD respectively over a rolling three-year period.

The draft consultation document was developed by their CPD Policy Working Group, and was approved by Veterinary Nurses (VN) Council and RCVS Council.

The consultation discusses the longer-term direction of CPD and the possibility of introducing an ‘outcomes-based’ approach. An outcomes-based approach, however, would concentrate less on the number of hours logged and more on interactive, reflective learning and measuring the impact this has on the individuals practice and patient health outcomes.

The consultation will ask for the professions’ views on this model as well as asking if they would like to retain the current requirement to log a certain amount of hours, their opinion on potential changes to the online Professional Development Record and how easy or difficult they think it will be to implement a new system.

The consultation document is now available, together with an online survey for submitting responses. The RCVS will email veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses and will also seek the views of a range of veterinary and veterinary nurse organisations.

All responses will then be submitted to the CPD Working Party to review at its next meeting in September in preparation for the final recommendations to RCVS Council in November.