Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is more than a box to tick. It is how registered health practitioners keep their knowledge and skills current, and how the public is assured of safe, effective care. The HPCSA’s CPD programme has changed recently: random compliance sampling has been discontinued, a new self-service platform is available, and CEU certificates are no longer mandatory. Here is what the cycle involves, what has changed, and what could happen if you fall behind.
Background
The primary purpose of CPD of the HPCSA is to ensure that registered health practitioners maintain and enhance their knowledge, skills, and experiences to ensure ongoing competency in practice. This process is crucial for public protection, as it helps practitioners to stay up to date with the latest advancements in their fields and ensures they provide safe and effective healthcare services. Ethical and professional practice of health professions require consistent and ongoing commitment to lifelong learning by all health practitioners and that is achieved through proper and relevant CPD engagements.
CPD is implemented under the legislative authority of the Health Professions Act, 1974 (Act No. 56 of 1974), as amended and its rules. Compliance with minimum requirements for CPD is not only a legislative requirement, but also an ethical obligation placed on every registered health practitioner.
The HPCSA document and tracks all recognisable engagements in terms of skills, knowledge and experiences that are gained both formally and informally by health practitioners as they engage on their practice, educational or learning activities, beyond initial training.
It is the goal of CPD to ensure that all health practitioners are to be guided by the principle of compassion, excellence in health care provision and delivery. CPD is designed to address the gap between emerging health needs and convergence between current and future desired practice initiatives and to ensure that relevant health priorities of the country are met.
Some of the CPD activities require prior approval before undertaking to enable recognition to earned Continuing Education Units (CEUs). The exception from preapproval of CPD activities are mainly those activities that are aligned or approved in line with the higher education institutions rules or professional association.
CPD Cycle
Practitioners are required to accumulate Continuing Education Units (CEUs) per twelve-month period, including in ethics, human rights, and medical law.
- Each CEU is valid for 12 months from the date on which the activity took place.
- This means that practitioners should aim to accumulate a balance of CEUs by the end of their second year of practice and thereafter top up the balance through additional CPD as each validity period expires.
Current CPD Arrangements
- The practice of random sampling of practitioners from the HPCSA’s database to verify compliance has been discontinued;
- A self-service platform on the HPCSA website for practitioners to submit queries and upload necessary evidence of CPD compliance;
- The HPCSA has approved that the facilitators of CPD activities for group activities submits CPDs attendance registers directly to HPCSA in order to update practitioners’ compliance status.
Changes to the CPD Programme
- Issuance of CEU certificates are no longer mandatory;
- The self-service portal on HPCSA website will remain available, in order to allow practitioners to log in and upload older certificates and those from non-recognised providers;
Non-Compliant Practitioners
The names of non-compliant health practitioners will be submitted to the relevant Professional Boards, which might take any of the following actions:
- Changing the category of registration to supervised practice; until the submission of proof of CPD compliance;
- Successfully passing a Board Examination;
- Suspension from the register until submission of proof of CPD compliance; or
- Any other resolution by the relevant Professional Board
Help
Should you experience any issues you can log a service request through the HPCSA portal. Click here for instructions.
Last Updated on 19 October 2026 by HPCSA Corporate Affairs