Training and Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Training and CPD tests how practitioners maintain competence after initial qualification and how that competence is evidenced at licence renewal.
CPD rules and evidence
PPB requires practitioners to accumulate CPD points annually as a condition of renewal. Points are normally earned through PPB-accredited providers, with one CPD point commonly corresponding to one contact hour. Activities can include formal courses, workshops, conferences, accredited online learning, practice-based meetings and documented journal clubs. Ethics, patient safety, dispensing, pharmacovigilance and regulatory updates are relevant areas. The practitioner must keep certificates, attendance records and a CPD portfolio, because PPB can audit claims. CPD is not the same as the Annual Practising Licence; it is an input to renewal, not a substitute for it.
Worked example
A pharmaceutical technologist has 14 hours from an accredited workshop, 3 hours from an unaccredited webinar and 2 hours from a documented practice journal club. If the annual minimum is 20 points, the unaccredited webinar may not count. The accredited workshop plus the documented journal club gives 16 points, leaving 4 accredited points to obtain. The reasoning is that CPD must be relevant, accredited or approved, and evidenced; undocumented or unaccredited activity is weak at audit.
Traps that cost marks
- Counting unaccredited webinars as if they were PPB CPD.
- Claiming the same activity twice in one cycle.
- Keeping no certificates or attendance evidence.
- Leaving CPD until the renewal window and missing the minimum.
- Confusing CPD with the APL or with initial registration.
- Ignoring ethics and patient-safety topics entirely.