More Than a Chore: What CPD Really Asks of Us

By Kate Sheehan, Occupational Therapist

Somewhere in every HCPC registration cycle, the same feeling surfaces. The renewal notice arrives, the declaration has to be made, and CPD starts to look less like development and more like a hoop to jump through. And when we, as therapists, discover we are not one of the 2.5 per cent asked to produce their evidence and statements, we breathe a quiet sigh of relief and sign the declaration. I have done exactly that. For years I saw CPD as a chore rather than something I was already doing.

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself what we’re actually maintaining through our CPD?

Society has recognised occupational therapy as a profession, and that recognition brings considerable privilege. It also brings an obligation. We do not simply collect a degree certificate and then stand still. The HCPC exists to protect the public, and it holds that obligation on society’s behalf, which is why we are required to declare at each renewal that we have continued to develop our knowledge and skills. That is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is the mechanism by which we repay the status we have been given, and by which the public can trust that the therapist in front of them is practising with current knowledge and skills, rather than with what was true when they qualified.

What changed things for me was not finding more time. It was changing how I understood what counted. The HCPC is explicit that CPD is not just formal courses. A CPD activity is any activity from which you learn and develop, and the categories are deliberately broad. They include work-based learning, such as reflecting on experience and considering feedback from service users; professional activity; formal education; and self-directed learning, such as reading a journal article or a book. Once I started seeing my working week through that lens, the learning was everywhere. The conversation with a colleague about a complex case. The news item I turned on during the drive home, asking what it meant for my practice. The mandatory training. The specific skill developed to meet a particular need.

It is also why companies, like Abacus Specialist Bathroom Solutions, have changed how they engage with us. There is a recognition that an occupational therapist’s time is precious, and that what was once a sales pitch has become something more useful. A lunch-and-learn session is not there to sell you a bath. It is there to help you understand when, where and how a product might help the child or adult you are working with, and when it might not. That is knowledge we need, delivered in a form that respects the constraints we work within.

But whether it was a five-minute conversation in a corridor or a week-long course, the value lies in one place only: the reflection. Without reflection there is attendance, but no learning. There is experience, but no change. The most important part of CPD is not the cost of the course or the drama of the critical incident. It is what you will do differently, and how that will change the way you use your knowledge and skills with the next person you assess. That is what keeps our practice current, and that is what keeps people safe.

Habit is the part I have had to work hardest at. RCOT members have a CPD portfolio through CPDme included in their membership, with reflective templates built in. It is a useful tool, but like any tool it only works when it is picked up regularly rather than remembered in a panic. I now set aside time once or twice a week to look back at what I have done and reflect on it. It is not a long slot, but it is protected, and it is where the learning actually happens. Reflection left until the end of a cycle is not reflection; it is reconstruction. The learning has already faded, and with it the chance to act on it.

So perhaps the question is not whether you have done enough CPD this cycle. It is whether your practice looks any different than it did two years ago.