Frequently asked questions
for GPs


 

Frequently asked questions
for GPs


 

FAQs 2023

Your minimum requirements for the 2020–22 triennium are: 

  • 2 x CPD accredited activities  
    (these are worth 40 points each, and in previous trienniums were known as Category 1 activities) 
  • 1 x Basic Life Support CPR course 
  • A total of 130 points. 

To check if you have met the requirements, log into your myCPD pages.

If you have met the requirements, you will see: 

  • 2 x ticks under your CPD Accredited Activities heading 
  • 1 x tick under you Basic Life Support heading 
  • your total number of points in the circle is greater than 130  
  • it will also state that you have met your minimum requirements. 

All requirements for the 2020–22 triennium must be completed by 31 December 2022. If you have a specific requirement with a third party (such as medical acupuncture or women’s health) these requirements will also need to be completed by 31 December 2022. 

If you have not met your requirements and need assistance, contact your local CPD team

The Medical Board of Australia has introduced a Professional Performance Framework with four main changes that’ll affect how doctors undertake CPD. These changes are to ensure you’re engaging in learning that’s relevant, effective and evidence based.

The new arrangements will begin on 1 January 2023. Under the MBA’s standards, doctors will: 
  1. have a CPD home 
  2. record 50 hours of CPD annually which includes a mix of the MBA’s new activity types: 
    • Educational activities (EA) - Activities that expand your General Practice knowledge, skills and attitudes, related to your scope of practice. 
    • Measuring outcomes (MO) - Activities that use your work data to ensure quality results; and 
    • Reviewing performance (RP) - Activities that require reflection on feedback about your work 

      A learning experience can cover a combination of two or more of these activity types. This is referred to as a hybrid activity. 
  3. complete a professional development plan (PDP) each year 
  4. meet their CPD requirements annually 
  5. refresh their skill in CPR every three years. 

In your day-to-day practice you may already be doing a lot of things that can count towards your CPD hours. You can include a wide range of activities that help you be a better GP. This can include routine things you do on your own in between patients, at the end of the day or to address the needs of specific patient(s).  

You can also include activities that you do with others, such as practice meetings, audits and practice accreditation activity, teaching, supervision, mentoring and team care planning/case-based discussions. You can also include conversations and educational activities that help you manage your health and wellbeing. 

All teaching and supervision will be recognised as CPD. This applies to members who are examiners, lecturers, teachers, assessors or develop and review educational content, for organisations like the RACGP, a university, or any other education provider. Research and development of clinical resources also counts as CPD. 

As a member you’ll have the freedom to do any CPD activity that is relevant to your work. You’ll also have access to an extensive range of activities, available to you by the RACGP and our current network of over 450 CPD providers. 

As a GP, the RACGP is your CPD home. As a member of the college, you’ll automatically be enrolled in the RACGP’s CPD program.  

We have a get-ready guide available to help you prepare for the new arrangements. 

Members have access to the RACGP’s myCPD Home. From 9 January 2023, when you log into the your RACGP account you will discover the new features of your RACGP home. This one place will contain tools to help you: 

  • identify what you are doing in your day-to-day practice that counts as CPD 
  • identify other activities you can include to meet your requirements 
  • reduce the administrative burden of planning and capturing your CPD 
  • access educational activities, templates, and guides 
  • decide how to record your self-recorded activity into the three activity types (educational activities, measuring outcomes, reviewing performance) 
  • evidence your self-recorded activity, in a way that is reasonable and practical 
  • monitor your progress towards fulfilling your requirements 

As a member you’ll have the freedom to do any CPD activity that is relevant to your work. You’ll also have access to an extensive range of activities specifically designed for the needs of GPs offered by RACGP and our current network of over 450 CPD providers.  

You can search for activities or use RACGP’s suggestions, all based on your interests, learning priorities, how you work, and how you like to learn.  

In early 2023 the RACGP will launch a new app for your mobile so you can log and track your CPD anywhere at any time. We’ll let you know as soon as this is available.  

As a GP, the RACGP is your CPD home and as a member of the college, you’ll automatically be enrolled in the RACGP’s CPD program.  

Our CPD Home gives you access to an extensive range of CPD activities, designed for GPs, offered by the RACGP and our current network of over 450 CPD providers. 

If you would like to become a member and make the RACGP your CPD Home, visit our website today or contact our Member Services team on 1800 472 247 or racgp@racgp.org.au  

Educational Activities

Activities that expand your General Practice knowledge, skills and attitudes, related to your scope of practice. These activities will be very familiar and include learning opportunities like lectures, webinars, workshops, reading, podcasts and courses.  

Measuring Outcomes 

Activities that use your work data to ensure quality results. When measuring outcomes, you use data from your work to show you’re aware of current evidence and best practice in a particular area. You could achieve this by conducting activities like research, audits or evaluations. This type of learning can help you achieve high-quality performance in your scope of practice.  

Reviewing Performance 

Activities that require reflection on feedback about your work. Feedback might be from patients, peers or even from yourself. In each of these situations, you’ll receive information about your performance that can either validate what you already do or identify areas for improvement. Meaningful reflection on this information is where the learning occurs and can result in improved capability in your scope of practice. 

Hybrid Activities

Many learning experiences contribute to more than one activity type. High quality educational activities like workshops, courses, small group learning, for example, are designed to be interactive and offer opportunities for you to consider how to apply your new knowledge or skills in your practice setting. The RACGP and our providers will be offering a broad range of hybrid activities across the three activity types for you to complete. 

When you self-record the activities you do in your day-to-day practice (using Quick Log), you also can allocate the CPD hours across the three activity types. Whilst the RACGP has tools to guide you in this, you have the flexibility to decide how you do this.

You may be doing work indirectly related to patient care that can be recognised as CPD.  

You might be a practice owner, a mentor, an extended skills leader. You might manage team-care based arrangements, support students or GPs in training, or offer wellbeing support to others.  

Activities you do in these roles, as well as all work-based teaching, supervision, examination, and assessment activity is recognised as CPD. These activities will contribute to your hours across the three activity types. 

You can decide how you allocate the hours across the activity types, depending on what it is you do. You can Quick Log one-off activities as you do them, or you can upload more routine activities every 3-6 months.  

The RACGP will provide guidance to help you do this, to minimise the administrative burden as much as possible. 

Please note if any of the work you do is for the RACGP (either as a staff member or via a Statement of Works), your CPD hours will be automatically uploaded for you. 

All teaching, supervision, examination, and assessment activity will be recognised as CPD, whether that be for the RACGP, a university or any other education provider.

You might be a committee member, advocate, academic or researcher. This activity is recognised as CPD.

Activities related to these roles will contribute to your hours across the three activity types. You can decide how you allocate the hours across the activity types, depending on what it is you do. You can Quick Log one-off activities as you do them, or you can upload more routine activities every 3-6 months.

The RACGP will provide guidance to help you do this, to minimise the administrative burden as much as possible.

Please note if any of the work you do is for the RACGP (either as a staff member or via a Statement of Works), your CPD hours will be automatically uploaded for you.

The new MBA CPD standard requires all registered doctors to complete a Personalised Development Plan (PDP) every year. A PDP is a plan that outlines how you would like your CPD to address your learning goals for that year.

The PDP is your personal and private document. The RACGP will not be reviewing or sharing your PDP.

You can use your own PDP template or the RACGP’s online PDP. The RACGP’s auditing requirements do not include review of PDP content. Reporting is based on status of PDP completion.

The RACGP’s PDP is a short form that asks 5-6 questions. It captures your learning priorities, your interests, the way you like to learn, what you think you’ll do during the year ahead, and places value on the things you already do to be a better GP.

At the beginning of each year, you will reflect on the previous year, and update your PDP for the next year ahead. The process of reflection and learning is ongoing so you can edit your PDP whenever you like. 

No. We are committed to delivering a CPD program that reduces the administrative burden for our members. 

If you choose to complete an activity offered by the RACGP and network of over 450 CPD providers, your hours will continue to be uploaded to your myCPD dashboard automatically as in previous triennia.

You might notice a small delay between your completion date and seeing your hours displayed on your dashboard. We give our providers 30 days to upload completions into our systems. Please do not Quick Log your completion as this will create a duplicate record. If you are concerned that an activity completion is missing from your records, your local CPD team can assist you.

You can use the Quick Log function in myCPD Home or new mobile app (available in early 2023) to record any activity that you do and find educationally valuable. Quick Log lets you easily upload notes or documents relevant to your CPD activities for safekeeping. This documentation is helpful in the event your CPD is audited. 

The RACGP will provide GPs and practices with tools and activity guides to assist with the implementation and recording of activities. Allocating hours to the CPD to the three activity types for audits, practice meetings and other CPD activities managed by your practice manager will depend on its purpose and the nature of the activity itself. 

E.g. if you were presenting at the meeting, you could include preparation time and attendance. If you were discussing clinical cases, practice improvements, audit results or feedback, you may also like to include the time that you spent reflecting and implementing changes to your practice, if applicable.

We are committed to offering a CPD program that reduces the administrative burden on our members. We are working on solutions that would enable your practice manager to upload your activity completions on behalf of GPs in your practice setting. 

All doctors actively practising in Australia need to meet their 50-hour requirements relevant to their registration type. This includes part-time GPs.

Medical students and GPs in an approved training pathway will meet their MBA requirements by participating in their training program.

Newly Fellowed GPs will have modified CPD requirements for the year your Fellowship is ratified. You could be entitled to either full or partial ‘credit’ towards the MBA requirements. If your Fellowship date is between January and June, you will receive a partial credit, and will need to complete modified CPD requirements for the remainder of the year. To meet the MBA’s requirements, you need to complete:

  • 10 hours of educational activities
  • 10 hours of measuring outcomes and/or reviewing performance
  • A PDP with an option to use the New Fellows Variation PDP template

If your date of Fellowship is from July onwards, you will be entitled to a ‘full credit’ for the remainder of the year and have met the MBA requirements.

All requests for exemption must be submitted in writing to cpd.national@racgp.org.au for approval from the RACGP. You can apply for an exemption if you have had a continuous 6-to 12-month leave of absence due to the following:   

  • parental or carer leave  
  • serious illness 
  • other approved circumstances (e.g., cultural leave) 

A CPD home is an organisation accredited by the Medical Board of Australia’s (MBA) accreditation authority, the Australian Medical Council (AMC), to provide a CPD program for medical practitioners. As a CPD home, the RACGP must: 

  • provide infrastructure to house medical practitioners’ CPD program/s 
  • publish details of requirements, content/activities and fees associated with the provision of its CPD program/s 
  • ensure the relevance and developmental value of its CPD activities 
  • provide advice and support to practitioners on CPD requirements and relevant CPD activities 
  • report to the MBA on compliance with CPD requirements 
  • be accredited by the AMC and report on compliance within the accreditation criteria 

To fulfil the MBA’s CPD minimum standard, you will need to participate in a program run by an approved CPD home accredited by the AMC.

CPD homes are required to provide a report to the MBA on the compliance of participants with their CPD program, within six months of close of the previous year.

All CPD homes are required to have an audit system in place to review the quality of activity submissions. The MBA requires that CPD homes audit 5% of its CPD activities.

Some GPs have other requirements set by other colleges or similar groups, to enable you to maintain recognition of specific skills or qualifications.

The RACGP is confirming the new arrangements with the relevant organisations. We will inform any member who has specific requirements directly if there are changes that will affect you.

We’ll update the RACGP website regularly with information about the 2023–25 CPD triennium. 

You can also contact the RACGP’s CPD team on 03 8699 0349 or cpd.national@racgp.org.au.

All RACGP state/territory faculties have a local CPD team who can help with your specific queries. You can find the contact details for each team here.