What are internal CPD credits?

NB: Requirements for the 2023 2024 PCS year are 40 CPD credits and 1 clinical / practice audit.

Internal CPD credits relate to internal practice evaluation and development and all doctors are required to record a minimum of 20 internal CPD credits per PCS year. These can be recorded with 1 hour of activity = 1 CPD credit. Examples include:

Activities which can be recorded include (but are not limited to):

• Case presentation: presenting particular patient scenarios as a way of informing others about approaches to care/treatment. This can be a two-way process and include feedback on care or treatment regimes
• Clinical case discussion: where a discussion takes place with another healthcare professional regarding clinical issues and approaches to a patient's treatment and care
• Clinical club: forming a club with other GP colleagues in your locality for regular clinical case discussions
• Clinical risk meeting: for example, where a GP/GP practice develop a plan to deal with seasonal epidemics (e.g. influenza)
• Committee participation: the ICGP PCS committee has agreed that this can be recorded for 1 internal CPD credit per meeting (to a maximum of 6 per year)
• Locum handover: discussing patient cases, files and updates on the practice
• Patient survey: where a survey is conducted to obtain patient feedback (e.g. on the practice, waiting times, friendliness of staff, care provided etc.) A sample survey template is available here.
• Peer review group: where patient cases/issues/practice issues are presented to peers who provide comments and advice and suggest alternative approaches to care and treatment. CME small groups act as a peer support/review group.
• Practice-based meeting: practices often hold regular meetings to discuss patient issues, attendance at courses & how to implement findings to improve patient care. To assist you with recording these, please see the template on www.icgp.ie/pcs_templates 
• Professional Development Plan (PDP): please see www.icgp.ie/pdp for more details
• Quality improvement process: review of an approach to care/treatment, etc. and implementation of outcomes
• Significant Event Analysis: a template is available on www.icgp.ie/pcs_templates

Remember! If you take learning back from a meeting and make subsequent changes to your practice as a result, you can record this for internal credits 

NB: Don't forget to always retain evidence to support your recorded activities. When recording internal CPD to your ePortfolio, you will need to enter a description (min. 50 characters) into the description box.

Evidence includes, at a minimum, the topics reviewed/discussed, the number of people in attendance (where relevant) and any practice changes made as a result of the activity.