In terms of the Health Professions Act, 56 of 1974, healthcare practitioners who are registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) are required to comply with Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme. The Professional Board for Radiography and Clinical Technology (PBRCT) resolved that all healthcare practitioners registered under its ambit should demonstrate compliance to the CPD requirements as of 01 April 2024, in order to renew their registration. To view or update the CPD status, click here. The CPD programme describes the learning activities which healthcare practitioners undertake to further their development and enhance their practices. This includes activities such as courses, workshops, journal clubs and reviewing of articles (please see below for a full list of activities recognised for CPD). The CPD programmes ensure that healthcare practitioners upskill themselves throughout their career, adapt to an evolving workplace and keeps professional practice exciting as healthcare practitioners continually learn and remain abreast of new developments and best practice.
The PBRCT undertakes to support its registered healthcare practitioner’s ongoing journey and commit to keeping healthcare practitioners up to date on the requirements for CPD, which are available on the HPCSA website under the PBRCT. We further encourage you to log onto the HPCSA’s online portal and continue to track your progress to ensure you attain and remain CPD compliant, especially ahead of the deadline of 1 April 2024. Note that the CPD Service Providers submit evidence of your attendance for all locally approved and recognised CPD activities, therefore, you do not have to upload such evidence; only evidence of CPD that is not approved by a local Service Provider may be uploaded on the HPCSA’s portal for validation.
CPD Guidelines
The number of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to be accumulated per year for healthcare practitioners who are active on the register are stipulated per profession in Table 1 below. Note that the HPCSA currently determines CPD compliance over a two-year period; as such, annual CEU points requirements are doubled to meet the compliance requirement.
Table 1: Prescribed CEUs for the Professional Board Radiography and Clinical Technology
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Currently, the HPCSA accepts the principle of cross recognition of CEUs and CPD activity, which is appropriate to healthcare and general patient management. Therefore, healthcare practitioners may obtain their CEUs within their own discipline, speciality or sub-speciality or within another relevant discipline, which is relevant to their scope of professional practice. This includes level one activities, with non-measurable outcomes, and level two activities, with measurable outcomes that may constitute up to a full year of earned CEUs. Level 2 activities are usually associated with formally structured learning programmes that is recognised by the PBRCT as an additional qualification. A healthcare practitioner may obtain CEUs at any level depending on personal circumstances and individual learning needs.
Table 2: Level 1 activities to accrue CPD points
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Level 2 activities
This level comprises structured learning, i.e., a formal programme that is planned and offered by an accredited training institution, evaluated by an accredited assessor and has a measurable outcome.
Activities include those stipulated in the following broad categories:
No prior approval by an accreditor is necessary in the following:
- Postgraduate degrees, diplomas and certificates that are recognised as additional qualifications by the relevant Professional Board – at the end of each year of study (not exceeding the normal duration of the degree); thirty CEUs may be claimed upon submitting an academic report on progress, and additional thirty CEUs may be claimed on successful completion of the qualification.
Prior approval by an accreditor is necessary in the following:
- Short courses with a minimum of 25 hours with additional clinical hands-on training, plus a formal assessment of the outcome – successful completion of an activity at this level will earn thirty CEUs; and
- Short courses less than 25 hours, with a measurable outcome (1 CEU per hour).
Other Activities:
Guidelines for the latter two activities are available on the HPCSA website here. Health practitioners will need to submit documentation or portfolios to an accreditor to obtain the thirty CEUs for the following activities.
- Learning portfolios; and
- Practice audit.
To assist you in meeting your CPD targets, the PBRCT has compiled a list of CPD providers (Table 3) who offer free or low-cost CPD activities, and we encourage practitioners to inform the Board of any activities or providers who are not listed, so that the list may be updated.
Table 3: Free and low-cost CPD providers
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In addition to attending CPD events, practitioners are encouraged to engage in Level I (Table 2) and Level II (Table 3) activities, which would permit them to accrue CEU points. Upon inspection, many of these activities are performed by practitioners already, and would just need formalisation or accreditation. The details of Accreditors and Accredited Service Providers are contained in the table below in Table 4a & 4b.
Table 4a: List of Accreditors for CPD activities
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Table 4b: List of Accredited service providers for CPD activities
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Dr DR Prakaschandra
On behalf of the Professional Practice Committee
Professional Board for Radiography and Clinical Technology
Last Updated on 4 September 2024 by HPCSA Corporate Affairs