This means they must complete 150 hours of CPD by July 31 2013 or risk losing their registration with the General Dental Council (GDC).
This deadline could prompt a rush of registrants signing up for courses and the GDC is taking this opportunity to alert CPD providers to the possibility of an increase in demand.
There may also be a rise in queries relating to past courses, such as requests for replacement certificates.
Of the 150 hours DCPs have to declare, 50 of these hours must be verifiable. Providers should remember that to count as verifiable CPD, an activity must have:
ü Quality controls,
ü Concise educational aims and objectives,
ü Clear anticipated outcomes,
ü Documentary proof.
It is important that CPD providers ensure their activities are of adequate quality, as part of enabling dental professionals to effectively keep their skills and knowledge up to date.
Who’s declaring what?
As a CPD provider you might find the statistics below of interest when deciding what type of courses to offer dental nurses, dental hygienists, dental therapists, orthodontic therapists, dental technicians and clinical dental technicians:
• 8,094 (22%) DCPs have logged all their hours (including 50 verifiable);
• 5,698 (13.5%) DCPs have logged no hours;
• Dental Technicians and Clinical Dental Technicians are the least likely to have logged hours - 25% and 23% respectively having not yet declared any.
A quick and easy way for DCPs to log their CPD hours is to use eGDC. In summer 2011 17,915 (33%) of the 54,877 DCPs who were sent the annual declaration mailing used eGDC to update their CPD hours.