Defining CPD
"CPD is an ongoing learning process
undertaken throughout one’s professional career aimed at acquiring, maintaining
and improving knowledge, skills and professional behaviour in line with evolving
standards. CPD ensures quality in practice, as well as personal development,
which are best achieved through reflective evaluation of each CPD activity.
Professional expertise is centred on providing an optimal Health Care
Service."
This is essentially the definition that the
Pathology CPD Committee formulated for its vision of what CPD means and this
definition will be guiding the Malta Team in its efforts to improve the quality
of CPD activities in Malta.
The Toolkits
The project will take place in five major
toolkits or phases between the years 2013 and 2015.
As locally delivered
hospital CPD activities are not currently subject to quality standards, the
consortium has recognised that there is a pressing need for this situation to be
resolved. Motivation to ameliorate this derives from a requirement for a
standardised approach to quality provision including accreditation of locally
delivered hospital CPD events. Current disparity and lack of quality is
emphasized by CPD systems in different partner countries including; a purely
output driven system, a system whereby the same activity is awarded different
points by different interview panels in the same country and a more input
focussed system.
Implementation of a common CPD quality framework is
necessary to solve inconsistencies. A common quality framework, the second
section of the toolkit, including a harmonised accreditation system along with
common evaluation of CPD activities will go some way to realising recognition of
transferable locally delivered hospital CPD activities for biomedical scientists
across the EU.
Reflecting effectively on CPD activities is a key skill
that all Biomedical Scientists should possess as reflective practice is known to
lead to enhanced competence. However, reflective practice is currently an
underused skill with doubts among laboratory scientists around using reflection
as part of their CPD stemming from uncertainty, inexperience and lack of
confidence (Wilson, 2010). This consortium will address this need by providing
EU hospitals with a framework (section 3 of the toolkit) for including CPD
activities within their locally delivered CPD events and thus making reflective
practice accessible within all CPD events. Guidelines for hospital laboratories
(section 4 of the toolkit) on managing and organising quality CPD activities for
laboratory staff will complete the toolkit which will be translated into all
partner languages. A CPD providers’ network will be an on-going means for an
EU-wide Community of Practice for EU-hospital laboratories.
This project
addresses the priorities of ET 2020 which recognises ‘that high-quality VET are
fundamental to Europe's success’ and that ‘lifelong learning needs to be a
priority’. The consortium aims to support the long-term strategic objectives of
EU education and training policies by improving the quality of biomedical
scientists’ CPD training. Whilst the goal of the project is to develop a common
quality framework toolkit for locally delivered hospital pathology CPD
activities, the project will be carried out in accordance with Article 149 of
the EC Treaty by ‘encouraging co-operation’ and respecting the prohibited
‘harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States’.
The
project supports the EU Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional
qualifications and the free movement of professionals, with associated future
economic success via a more mobile workforce as biomedical scientists are
already motivated to practice in different EU countries and are among the top 25
most mobile of the regulated professions. As a mobile profession there is a need
for recognition of an individual’s CPD across the EU which will be achieved in
part by harmonisation of locally delivered hospital based CPD activities within
a common EU quality framework. The accomplishment of this project will
dramatically change the way in which CPD is organised, managed and delivered by
EU hospital laboratories. Thus competence to practice and EU-citizen patient
safety, the heart of the profession is ensured.
Specifically, host
meetings will be focussed around the expertise of partners and each section of
the toolkit will result from the combined efforts of the partner organizations
with one partner having overall responsibility for completion of one section
pertinent to their area of expertise.
Toolkit 1
This consists in the understanding of the similarities and
differences in the CPD requirements of different European countries.
Toolkit 2
This consists in
the identification of different types of CPD activities including the
identification of core elements of good practice.
Toolkit 3
This consists in
the identification of which core elements of good practice do to currently
incorporate within the design of CPD activities.
Toolkit 4
Worked Example: How
to incorporate online learning into a CPD activity.
Toolkit 5
Identification of
which core elements of good practice one could incorporate within future design
of CPD activities.