The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeon’s (RCVS) Council members have agreed changes to the College’s policies on Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
The changes, approved by both the RCVS Council and RCVS VN Council, are:
- To change the CPD requirement – as stated in the Codes of Professional Conduct – to 35 hours per calendar year for veterinary surgeons and 15 hours in the same period for veterinary nurses, from the start of 2020. This replaces the previous requirement of 105 hours and 45 hours of CPD over a rolling three-year period for veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses respectively.
- Making the use of the new CPD platform (currently in development) for recording learning and development mandatory from 2022.
- Giving veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses who, upon renewing their registration, have confirmed their compliance with the requirement, the opportunity to download a certificate demonstrating this.
- The introduction of an administration fee that will be charged to any veterinary surgeons or veterinary nurses who continually (defined as two or more years in a row) fail to confirm their compliance with the requirement and/or fail to respond to requests from the College for their CPD records.
- Changing the words of the Codes of Professional Conduct to include the fact that CPD should be ‘regular’ and ‘relevant’.
- The continuation of the CPD Referral Group, which meets to consider what further steps should be taken in cases of veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses who continually fail to comply with CPD requirements and/or respond to requests.