The Cavendish Conference Centre in London was the venue for the recent GDC event ‘CPD in Dentistry: For the Future’. It was aimed at providers of dental CPD and included a discussion on the role of CPD, findings of research into the state of UK dental CPD, as well as a brief overview of the GDC’s proposals for change to the nature of CPD in dentistry.
Evlynne Gilvarry, the GDC’s chief executive and registrar, opened the event explaining that it was designed to continue the dialogue between the regulator and the profession, before introducing the first speaker of the day Andy Friedman.
Andy is the chief executive of the Professional Association Research Network (PARN) as well as a professor of management and economics at the University of Bristol. He began with a brief history of CPD, charting its growth in professional organisations since the 1970s. When discussing CPD there is a clear difference between systems which are input based (like the current GDC CPD requirements) and those which are output based.
From an administrative perspective an input based system is attractive, it can be relatively easy to implement and maintain and provides an easily quantifiable measurement system of CPD participated in. The downside to this kind of system is that it can lead to a tick box mentality, rather than genuine professional development, and there is no direct indication of whether any learning has actually taken place. Output systems do show whether learning has taken place and can show the impact it has, however these systems require greater resources to regulate and accurate measurement can be difficult.
Andy explained that the move generally in CPD provision was to output systems, and went on to highlight how such systems work in other industries. All the delegates seemed to agree that movement towards effective higher grade outputs was ideal. The first question asked of Andy was whether the movement and progress of CPD in other professions was led by the providers or the regulators. The answer given was of course the regulator, though Evlynne continued to press that she believed the providers should be the ones to lead the way.
The second speaker was Michael Lawrie, a senior researcher at ICF GHK. Michael project managed the ‘Rapid Industry Assessment of CPD in Dentistry’ and gave a quick overview of its findings.
Despite the report being a brief overview of the UK scene, and lacking depth in detail, it was nonetheless interesting to be given a snapshot of the state of CPD provision in the country. Michael described CPD in dentistry as “open and unregulated”, a fact that will worry many dentists. He highlighted that though half the providers on the market had existed for over 15 years there was a spike of new entrants that emerged six to 10 years ago (perhaps due to the introduction of mandatory CPD requirements for dentists in 2002 and DCPs in 2008). He also stated that commercial providers offer the highest proportion of verifiable CPD. This was something touched upon in a later question when one of the delegates questioned whether the aims of a commercial business are at odds with the provision of quality CPD for the sake of professional development. The vast majority of delegates booed this suggestion, obviously not wanting to suggest for a second that they would put monetary gain ahead of quality provision, however the point remained unanswered - if CPD provision is unregulated, will every dental professional take it upon themselves to do the right thing and get good quality CPD and not just treat it as a tick box exercise that needs to be completed for the sake of continued registration? Evlynne’s response to the question was to put a great deal of faith into the integrity of dental professionals, and whilst I’m sure that for a great number of dentists that faith will be justified (they will see CPD for what it should be, a chance for genuine development of themselves and progress their clinical skills and ultimately their career). It would be naïve though to suggest it will be universal, especially among all DCPs and nurses.
Claire Herbert, head of revalidation at the GDC, was the final speaker of the day, and she took delegates through the current regulation requirements for dentists and the proposals for the future with reference to the ongoing consultation on the subject. Following her presentation there were questions about what constitutes ‘quality controls’ and why the GDC doesn’t regulate or approve providers. Evlynne quickly passed over to a representative of COPDEND, who announced it would be setting up an independent approval system for CPD providers.
Whilst a COPDEND approved provider status may be beneficial to the profession, if approval isn’t mandatory for all providers it has to be questioned how effective it will be at ensuring quality of provision and improving CPD standards. The GDC consultation on CPD ended March 21. We will keep you informed of its conclusions and how they will impact you in the coming months.