03/04/19: Medical Council & PCS advice
Email circulated to all on PCS on 03/04/19.
Important – Please Read – Medical Council & PCS
– Developments in Compliance & Monitoring
Ensure you have 20 External + 20 Internal + 5 Personal + 5 from any category CPD credits, plus Clinical (Practice) Audit, logged in your diary.
We understand that the Medical Council will include a new question regarding PCS Compliance on its 2019 Annual Retention Application Form (ARAF) for your registration retention process. Doctors will be asked to confirm they are “maintaining professional competence pursuant to CPD requirements [YES / NO]”. “CPD requirements” means 20 External, 20 Internal, 5 Personal plus another 5 CPD credits, plus Clinical (Practice) Audit. In response to our request for clarification around the new question, the Medical Council says “If doctors have not completed or failed to log their CPD requirements (CPD credits or clinical audit/practice improvement activity), we would encourage that they declare this in their Annual Retention Application Form by choosing ‘NO’ to the question about CPD requirements. Non-compliant RMPs will be given every opportunity to become compliant during the Scheme Year 2019 – 2020.”
The Medical Council may follow up in 2019/20 with doctors who answer “NO”. It will also request all Training Bodies to provide them with lists of doctors who are not compliant, for comparison with their own lists. Training Body lists will not include those doctors who were added to the General / Specialist / Supervised Division of the Medical Council Register and enrolled in PCS part-way through the PCS year; or those who notified their Training Body of a certified period of leave from practice of more than 3 months – sick leave; maternity leave; carers leave; parental leave; bereavement leave – for annotation. Please read the full text of the letter which the Medical Council has asked all Training Bodies to circulate to their PCS enrolees.
We would urge you at this point to check your online CPD Diary and ensure:
1. All your CPD credits are correctly logged.
2. You have good evidence for everything you logged.
3. You have completed, or will complete, a Clinical (Practice) Audit during this PCS year, and confirm same on your diary.
4. If you have any shortfall in credits, please ensure you have plans for activities up to 30th April, that will bring your logged credits up to minimum 20 External, 20 Internal, 5 Personal, and a further 5 credits.
– Hot Topics meetings (https://irishpsychiatry.ie/courses-and-events/hot-topic-events/) (2 External Credits each) are in Cork on 15th April and Dublin on 25th April.
– Up to 10 External and 10 Internal CPD credits can be logged for Hot Topics eModules (https://irishpsychiatry.ie/professional-competence/hot-topics-emodules-online-cpd/cpsychi-hot-topics-emodules/) and for CPD completed on other approved websites (https://irishpsychiatry.ie/professional-competence/cpd-diary-app/online-cpd-links/).
All this information, and more, is on the PCS section of our website https://irishpsychiatry.ie/professional-competence/
You can always contact us in the College for assistance on any professional competence matters.
Jennifer: (01) 634 4378 / jkavanagh@irishpsychiatry.ie
Lorna: (01) 634 4378 / lorna@irishpsychiatry.ie
Louise: (01) 634 4375 / louise@irishpsychiatry.ie
NB: If you were added to the General, Specialist or Supervised Division Medical Council Register on a date after 1st May 2018, then for this year of PCS, the 50 credit requirement is pro-rata from your registration date.
LOGGING CREDITS AND CLINICAL (PRACTICE) AUDIT STATUS:
*** To save time, you can group a set of activities together and log the total credits. For example:
- enter one date (between 01/05/18 and 30/04/19)
- enter a text description such as “12 journal clubs, 1 hour each, May 18 – April 19
- enter the total number of credits for these activities in the correct category i.e. 12 Internal Credits
- select the domains of professional practice covered by these activities
- click on “save log” button, please wait while the data is saved
*** Clinical (Practice) Audit: Click on CA? in the PCS Year 2018/19 and select YES or NO as applicable.
*** To log into your online CPD Diary, you need your College Number and PCS Password. These were emailed to all on PCS on 27/03/19 by Jennifer Kavanagh.
Link: https://irishpsychiatry.ie/pcs/web/login.php
Please contact the College’s PCS department for any queries or advice about your Peer Group. Email pcs@irishpsychiatry.ie or call the PCS office on (01) 634 4378 / 4375.