Your minimum requirements for the 2020–22 triennium were: 

• 2 x CPD accredited activities  
  (these were worth 40 points each) 
• 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 your 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 have been completed by 31 December 2022. If you had a specific requirement with a third party (such as medical acupuncture or women’s health) these requirements also needed to be completed by 31 December 2022. 

If you have met your requirements for 2020-22, you will be able to download your Certificate of Completion from your myCPD account.

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

When you renew in 2023, you need to declare you have met the CPD registration standard in the previous registration period which means completion of the 2020-2022 triennium’s CPD requirements. You will not be asked if you are part of a CPD home.  Further information - see what CPD practitioners need to do.

The Medical Board of Australia CPD Registration Standards has introduced a Professional Performance Framework that will affect how doctors undertake CPD. These changes are to ensure you’re engaging in learning that’s relevant, effective and evidence based. From 1 January 2023, doctors will:

1. have a CPD home 
2. record 50 hours of CPD annually which includes a mix of the MBA’s CPD activity types: 
   • 25 hours - Reviewing Performance (RP) and Measuring Outcomes (MO) - you decide the best mix of these activities to suit your practice, with five hours minimum of each type.  Reviewing Performance are activities that require reflection on feedback about your work and Measuring Outcomes are activities that use your work data to ensure quality results.
   • 12.5 hours - traditional learning or Educational Activities (EA), e.g., reading, lectures, podcasts, webinars, conferences, etc. Educational Activities are activities that expand your general practice knowledge, skills and attitudes, related to your scope of practice.
   • 12.5 hours free choice of activities – doctors allocate these CPD hours, they can be EA, RP or MO or a mixture of any of these three.
     
     A CPD activity 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) annually 
4. meet their CPD requirements annually 
5. refresh their CPR skills once in a given triennium (e.g., once within the CPD 2023-25 triennium)

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). Use the CPD in your Practice for guidance.

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 peer to peer conversations and educational activities that help you manage your health and wellbeing. Refer to CPD Solutions for guidance.

All teaching and supervision will be recognised as CPD. This applies to members who are examiners, lecturers, teachers, assessors or those who 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. 

If you are involved in teaching or supervising medical students in a university setting, please contact cpd.national@racgp.org.au. As a member, 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 member, the RACGP is your CPD home.

Members have access to the RACGP’s myCPD. When you log into your RACGP account you will discover 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
• self-record activities in the three activity types (educational activities, reviewing performance and measuring outcomes) 
• evidence your self-recorded activity, in a way that is reasonable and practical 
• monitor your progress towards fulfilling your requirements 
• browse an extensive range of activities specifically designed for the needs of GPs offered by 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 CPD activities 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 offer a broad range of hybrid activities across the three activity types. 

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. Refer to Activities for your CPD for guidance.

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 activities as you do them, or you can upload more routine activities as frequently as is convenient.  

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 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. If you are involved in teaching or supervising medical students in a university setting, please contact cpd.national@racgp.org.au.

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. Refer to the Activities for your CPD for guidance.

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 uploaded for you.

The new MBA CPD standard requires all registered doctors to complete a Professional Development Plan (PDP) annually. 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. Completion of your PDP is capped at 5 hours of Reviewing Performance annually.

The RACGP’s PDP is a short form that asks 4 questions. It captures your current situation, learning goals, reflection on culturally safe practice and annual reflection.

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 or network of over 450 CPD providers, your hours will continue to be uploaded to your myCPD dashboard automatically.

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, contact the activity provider or your local CPD team can assist you.

You can use the Quick Log function in the myCPD website or mobile app to record any activity that you do and find professionally valuable. Quick Log lets you easily upload evidence 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 of CPD to the three activity types for audits, practice meetings and other CPD activities 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. Refer to CPD in your Practice for guidance.

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. 

GPs who have participated in the accreditation of their practice will be awarded five CPD hours, per year, equally split as 2.5 hours of Reviewing Performance and 2.5 hours of Measuring Outcomes. This totals 15 hours for participation in practice accreditation between 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2025. The RACGP will administer the allocation of these hours to GPs from data provided by the accreditation agencies on a quarterly basis, with the first two quarters due in July 2023. If you have undertaken general practice accreditation from 1 January 2023, and your hours aren’t showing on your myCPD History, please follow up with your accrediting agency.  

All doctors registered with AHPRA 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 Fellowship is ratified. Fellows could be entitled to either full or partial ‘credit’ towards the MBA requirements. To meet the MBA’s requirements, those who Fellow between January to June need to complete:

• 10 hours of Reviewing Performance and/or Measuring Outcomes 
• 10 hours of any CPD activity type 
• A PDP with an option to use the New Fellows Variation PDP template

The RACGP will award 30 CPD hours credit for those who Fellow between January and June, allocated on your CPD statement as 15 hours EA, 7.5 hours RP, and 7.5hrs MO.

If the date of Fellowship is from July onwards, a ‘full credit’ for the remainder of the year will be granted.

Additionally, 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, sabbatical, long service leave)

All requests for an exemption must be submitted in writing to cpd.national@racgp.org.au for approval by the RACGP.

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.

The RACGP's Quality Assurance Audit policy is available here.

The Rural Procedural Grants Program (RPGP) provides financial assistance to GPs who provide procedural and/or emergency medicine services in unsupervised settings in rural and remote areas. See www.racgp.org.au/rpgp for further information.

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.

All member data is managed in according with the RACGP’s privacy policy.

Any proposed changes to the CPD program/requirements will be communicated at least six months in advance through multiple member channels including the following: 

• Statement made on website 
• Included on App and myCPD 
• Included in monthly CPD newsletter 
• Direct correspondence to all members by email  
• Social media  

The RACGP strongly encourages all members to do CPD that aligns with their scope of practice / role(s). Many GPs have more than 1 role, and members should allocate their CPD hours to support their work in these roles. Members can dedicate all their CPD to support their clinical work, even if clinical work is a smaller portion of their overall workload.

Whilst most doctors with FRACGP do not hold additional Fellowships nor have additional requirements to maintain the recognition of an additional skill or qualification, there are many RACGP members who do.

Those who might have additional CPD requirements could include: 

• A FRACGP doctor who also holds Fellowship in public health medicine, occupational health medicine, psychiatry, or any other medical specialty.
• A FRACGP who holds a Diplomas in a specific field, such as Obstetrics.
• A GP with a specific interest/ role that encourages or requires a specific CPD requirement for practice. This includes diagnostic radiology, mental health practice, medical acupuncture, women’s reproductive health, surgical services, or anaesthesia as well as credentialling at local hospitals or other services. 

Guidance for those with multiple fellowships from multiple specialist colleges

Doctors will need to fulfil the CPD requirements from each College, to retain specialist registration in multiple fields. AMC-accredited specialist medical colleges can propose ‘high-level requirements’ for CPD that are specialty specific and additional to minimum CPD requirements set by the Medical Board of Australia.

However, doctors are not expected to have to repeat the same CPD through 2 or more Colleges. If CPD is done in a Specialist College that is not the RACGP, and it fits with the scope of practice of a GP, this CPD can be counted towards the RACGP CPD Program.

Please check the table below. If you hold a qualification with the following medical colleges, then you will have additional high-level requirements for 2023. Details of these are published by the Medical Board of Australia.

   

Guidance for those with Diplomas / other qualifications or endorsements with specific requirements for practice

Doctors with qualifications, endorsements, or interests, who need (or want) to fulfil specific CPD or CPD-like requirements can count these activities as CPD within the RACGP CPD Program. To do so, the qualifications and endorsements should relate to their role in the profession of general practice (clinical or nonclinical).

For GPs with Medical Acupuncture Specific Requirement, we no longer have to report the 2020-22 triennium as well as subsequent year/s or triennium Medical Acupuncture requirements completion to Medicare or Services Australia. You have to complete your Application for endorsement for Acupuncture and direct your queries to Ahpra.

Current specific requirements are as follows:
 

If you are unhappy with the result of an audit conducted on your CPD in particular;  where you've been advised that your CPD activity does not meet the requirements of the CPD program or you have not complied with the Registration standard, and you would like either further information or to provide feedback, please email cpd.national@racgp.org.au. 

If, after this communication, you want to dispute the outcome of the audit, you can do so using the Dispute, Reconsideration and Appeals Policy.

If you need specific advice on CPD activities to meet performance management or remediation requirements, you can email the CPD team directly on cpd.national@racgp.org.au. All enquiries will be managed in confidence.

Further information is available in the The Guide to performance management and support for general practitioners; Essential principles for managing performance concerns. 

You should aim to complete all your CPD requirements by 31 December. The RACGP will support those practitioners who have been unable to complete their CPD by allowing a grace period to enter activities for the previous year up until 31 March the following year.