A Guide to CPD

What is CPD and why do you need it?

Primarily, continued professional development can help to maintain competence in everyday tasks, whatever the profession. For eye care professionals, this is incredibly important as CPD can play a role in ensuring positive care  and keeping up to date with any changes across the industry.

Ultimately, CPD could help eye care personnel to ensure patient safety above all, by keeping knowledge up to date and being aware of evolving practices or regulations. Some regulatory bodies set CPD requirements for registration and license renewal.

Governing body CPD requirements for eye care professionals ophthalmologists and optometrist

In some cases there may be targets that must be met when it comes to CPD hours or points, in order to meet revalidation and renewal of registration requirements. However, this is dependent on the regulatory body.

In the UK, there are a number of regulatory and professional bodies that should be considered for eye care. This includes The Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth), the General Optical Council (GOC) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists

RCOphth runs a 5-year cycle of CPD activity, where it expects 250 points to be accumulated with an annual minimum of 20 points . The Royal College of Ophthalmologists states that CPD should include activities both inside and outside of the employing institution. RCOphth runs its own CPD programme, but also allows for self-accreditation for relevant activities.

It’s important to note that CPD documents are required during the annual appraisal and revalidation procedures under The Royal College of Ophthalmologists.

General Optical Council

For registrants of the General Optical Council, CPD is a statutory requirement for fully-qualified optometrists and dispensing opticians. Their CPD requirements run over a 3-year cycle, which expects 36 points to be obtained. A minimum of 18 CPD points must come from specific GOC CPD providers, while the other points can be accrued from self-directed CPD. In addition if you are a contact lens optician or a therapeutic optometrist you must obtain a further 18 speciality CPD points related to you area of practice. 

General Pharmaceutical Council

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) requires registrants to complete 4 CPD records, a peer discussion and a reflective account per year. This can include self-directed CPD learning.

How Théa and the Thea Academy can Support CPD

At Théa Academy, you will find a number of resources and courses that are designed to help support your CPD in eye care. Available as e-learning modules, you can view courses by specific areas of interest to find the most relevant CPD learning for your field. 

At Théa, education is part of our core strategy supporting clinicians in their delivery of cutting-edge vision and eye health care to patients through methods such as videos, online courses, online live events, conferences and face-to-face meetings plus skills workshops and more.

We tailor our education to a range of audiences across sectors such as pharmacy, optometry, medical and independent service providers, allowing us to reach groups such as university students, pharmacists, optometrists, ophthalmologists and more.

We are registered with the General Optical Council as an approved provider in CPD but also deliver CPD for the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCO) and other eye care related professional bodies.