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CPD Hours

What do CPD hours, points, units, and credits mean?

The definitions of CPD points, units, and credits, as well as their relationship to CPD hours, are briefly covered on this page.

Every professional in every industry must continue their professional development to advance their abilities and knowledge. Keeping track of your CPD hours, points, units, or credits can help track the training you receive each year, the learning objectives you’ve achieved and the abilities you’ll use to advance and improve your proficiency. A CPD record is a common name for an individual’s training log.

What is a CPD record?

A CPD record tracks the advancement of your learning from year to year. It is a person’s proof of compliance with their professional body’s or association’s requirements for continuing professional development. The register of learning activities, including training sessions, workshops, and educational events attended, the amount of CPD hours/points the person has accrued for any given year, and a copy of the delegate CPD certificates for each activity are all included in a CPD record. These CPD delegate certificates prove that the course was attended and finished. 

To ensure that their annual Continuing Professional Development hours or point criteria are being met, professional bodies check the CPD portfolios of their members. In addition, a CPD profile should show a variety of learning strategies and their effects on potential future performance. Finally, keep your CPD record current at all times because it is more challenging to register CPD towards the end of the year while trying to recall all you did during that time.

What do CPD credits, units, and points mean?

What are CPD points, units, or credits, and how do CPD points relate to CPD hours are two of the most frequently asked questions about continuing professional development. For example, a natural split in commonly used phrases and expressions has emerged due to the growing number of professional organisations in the UK and their diverse annual requirements for Continuing Professional Development. Depending on the choice, different professional bodies refer to continuing education as “CPD hours,” “CPD points,” “units,” or “credits,” usually for historical rather than contemporary strategic reasons when first enacting their Continuing Professional Development policy.

How do CPD hours compare to CPD points, units, and credits?

All industries agree that CPD hours, points, units, and credits are the same. How do CPD Hours work? CPD hours are the amount of time a delegate spends engaging in “active learning.” Actual time spent learning something pertinent to their Continuing Professional Development goals is known as active learning. One such excellent example is a one-day approved CPD training course. The training would count as having completed 7 CPD hours if it lasted from 9 am until 5 pm with a 1-hour lunch break.

It is believed that 95 per cent of all professional bodies utilise CPD Hours as their Continuing Professional Development metric and that, in most cases, CPD Hours are equivalent to CPD Points, Units, or Credits. This refers to the common rule that 1 CPD point equals 1 CPD hour.

Recording your CPD Hours

All people should regularly effectively manage their Continuing Professional Development. It is simpler to manage throughout the year to record your CPD Hours or points in an organised and regular manner. This makes it more likely that a person will participate in training and events pertinent to their goals for progress instead of taking classes purely out of interest.

Recording your CPD points enables reflection on the learnings from the exercises, what can be applied to daily goals, and what skill sets need to be developed next. Generally speaking, the following details should be included when entering your CPD hours in your CPD portfolio: Date of CPD activity, Title of CPD activity, A brief description should include the learning outcomes, the learning technique (such as an eLearning course, workshop, event, or training course), the amount of CPD hours, points, or credits, and the learning method.

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