In terms of the Health Professions Act,56 of 1974 compliance to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a compulsory legislated requirement for all registered healthcare practitioners. The Medical and Dental Professions Board (MDB) is concerned about the low level of its registered practitioners’ compliance to the minimum requirements of the CPD programme. The current compliance rate for CPD by practitioners registered under the Medical and Dental Professions Board is 33%.
The Board has extended the deadline for its registered practitioners to comply with CPD to end of March 2025. Practitioners are expected to comply with CPD requirements offered through different venues, e.g webinars, etc. There are various penalties which can be imposed by the Professional Board for non-compliance, such as changing the category of registration to supervised practice; instituting a Board examination; suspension from the register or any other resolution by the relevant Professional Board.
The aim of CPD is to ensure that healthcare practitioners’ skills, knowledge, experience and performance are continually updated to ensure provision of best care to patients, and that healthcare practitioners contribute to the improvement of overall health systems outcomes of the country.
All registered healthcare practitioners are required to be always CPD compliant, to remain registered with the Health Professional Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and to enable them to practise their professions. Non-compliance could result in a practitioner’s registration being suspended.
Click here to view the HPCSA CPD guidelines and see the instructions on how to submit CEUs below.
The MDB urges all registered practitioners to take urgent measures to ensure that they become CPD compliant. The first step would be to log in to the online services to check real time CPD compliance status, then if non-compliant, liaise with the CPD Service Provider to submit all CPD certificates from the past 24 months to the HPCSA for capturing and record keeping, if not done already. The HPCSA is continuously working on the online self-service platform to improve its user-friendliness.
Accredited Service Providers are now able to submit evidence of CPD compliance on behalf of the practitioners (except for international providers, published manuscripts and formal qualifications or any other self-study activities), for HPCSA’s upload and validation. It is, however, important to remember that it remains the responsibility of each registered professional to always ensure that they are CPD compliant.
The CPD programme requires that most healthcare practitioners accumulate a total of 30 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) per twelve-month period, of which five CEUs should relate to ethics, human rights and medical law. Each CEU is valid for 24 months from the date on which the activity took place (or ended, in the event of post-graduate studies) after which it lapses. This means that practitioners should aim to accumulate a balance of 60 CEUs by the end of their second year of practice, which is the period at which CPD compliance is determined, and thereafter top-up the balance through additional CPD as each 24 – month validity period expires.
Online CPD Submission Guide
Practitioners who are not familiar with the online CPD submission system, can log into the main HPCSA website choosing ‘Online Services’ as displayed below.
Click on ‘Log in or Sign up’
Practitioners using page for the first time can log in as follows:
• Log in using their HPCSA registered email address.
• Username is your ID number.
• Forgotten password: Practitioners may request a new password to be emailed to them should they have forgotten theirs.
Follow the online prompts to complete the log in process.
Click on ‘Account Overview’ to access your CPD options.
Select the ‘My CPD’ option and enter your CPD activities from outside platforms and activities by following the on-screen prompts.
Upon completion of submissions, practitioners will receive a notification of the CPD profile updates.
Please note: Online providers should be linked to the HPCSA and CPD details are updated as they are submitted.
Help
In the event CPD updates not reflecting on the practitioner profile, practitioners can log a service request.
Last Updated on 26 August 2024 by HPCSA Corporate Affairs