TRAINING
TRAINING
CPD – Online spaces
can reduce the hassles
As the NHS moves towards becoming paperless, health professionals should consider the
benefits of using personal learning spaces for Continuing Professional Development
By Debbie Holmes
C
ontinuing Professional Development (CPD) is a requirement for most health care
professionals (HCPs) to enable
them to continue to meet
professional standards, to provide evidence of contemporary practice and study
for registration purposes. Whilst the
process for CPD is valuable in maintaining
competency and currency in a fast evolving healthcare system, it can be difficult to
record and evidence this without some
level of structure and guidance.
Increasingly tools such as eportfolios
and Personal Learning Spaces (PLS) are
being used to support recording, reflective learning, peer review, and action planning for development. Not only can the
learning be recorded, it can then be collated into a presentation format to demonstrate professional standards or provide
evidence of CPD for the purpose of audit,
appraisal or career advancement.
Eportfolios often provide structure by
listing competencies or professional standards such as the Health and Care Professions Council standards. Practitioners use
the standards as a framework to evidence
their abilities and use the eportfolio as a
method to present their current standing.
This approach works well in giving structure, but can suffer from lack of engagement as only items highlighted in the standard are addressed and there is a danger
that the process becomes a somewhat
constraining tick box exercise.
PLSs provide the core eportfolio functionality, but also allow users much more
freedom to record and reflect upon any of
their activities. Be it a conversation with a
colleague, a critical incident in the workplace or a formal training course. Importantly the individual can record something
in the personal space and keep it private.
As the individual is in control of each
record they create they can choose to
share any of them with a colleague for
peer review or comment and if at some
point in the future the recorded item highlights their abilities they can draw upon it
to create personal eportfolio presenta-
40
PrimaryCareToday Summer 2013
tions to illustrate their competence. This
may be based on standards or customised
by the individual to meet their specific
needs.
Very often CPD is recorded in retrospect
and can be rushed particularly if the purpose is not obvious or becomes a tick box
exercise. Where there is organisational
backing and multiple potential uses, individuals are much more likely to engage in
on-going recording of their activities.
HCPs learn and develop in the workplace
on a daily basis, recording and reflecting
upon this type of personal development
helps build competence and embed good
practice. Recording this in a format that
can be reviewed and used again for multiple purposes, including evidencing CPD,
appraisal and job applications gives individuals the maximum benefit from their
efforts.
“PLSs provide the
core eportfolio
functionality, but
also allow users
much more freedom
to record and reflect
upon any of their
activities”
Care delivered by HCPs is in a state of
constant change and individuals have a
responsibility to ensure that their own
practice is based on sound knowledge
and understanding and on good research
where this exists.
Whilst employers have an obligation to
provide some training and development
and the support for CPD, the responsibility
lies mainly with the practitioner who
needs to define his or her own needs, to
do this they must be able to reflect and
identify learning needs. This will in turn
improve the quality of care for service
users as the individual will be knowledgeable and up to date with current effective
practice.
In light of the Francis Report of the Mid
Staffordshire Public Inquiry, it is likely to
become increasingly important for practitioners to be able to demonstrate their
The newspaper for leaders, influencers and decision makers
can be further evidenced by testimony
and comment from others who have supported, guided and interacted with them
during the process.
own competence and the quality of the
care they provide.
PHYSIOTHERAPISTS AND CPD
The Chartered Society of Physiotherapists
(CSP) is a professional, educational and
trade union body which provides PebblePad, an online PLS as a member benefit
for all of their 35,000 members. The system is used by members to help record
and reflect upon their CPD activities. Physiotherapists are required to evidence their
on-going CPD and every 2 years a sample
of registrants are called upon to present
their development to the Health and Care
Professions Council for audit purposes.
Within the PLS the members are able to
use templates to provide structure to the
recording process. This helps guide members through recording their activities,
promotes reflection on the learning and
helps highlight how it has influenced their
practice.
Using the PLS is of particular benefit to
those who find it difficult to begin the
recording process as the inbuilt prompts
give individuals guidance.
The PLS also enables CSP members to
record and evaluate their learning from a
range of activities, document professional
achievements and abilities relevant to
their current practice, and devise clear
action plans for future development, using
new and existing resources provided by
the CSP. As an online system members can
access their own password protected personal space from any internet connected
computer and either use the templates
provided or upload files directly into the
system. This can include video and photographic evidence if appropriate. Once
recorded, items can be revisited, reflected
upon and collated to provide a comprehensive portfolio of activity. As the system
uses secure technology, individuals can be
sure that the records of the activity are not
lost or misplaced as paper records might
be.
Supporting others to learn and develop
is an integral part of a qualified physiotherapist’s role and part of the physiotherapist
code and framework. The CSP currently
supports a project, funded by the Union
Learning Fund, to help members achieve
CPD excellence in changing workplace
contexts. This includes developing CPD
resources and building a network of learning champions – CSP members who want
to support and promote excellence in CPD
with their colleagues. The project encourages members to use the PLS for planning,
doing and reviewing their CPD. Learning
Champions have their own network on the
system, where they can find material to
support them in delivering their role and
feedback information about their activities
to the project team.
CHIROPODISTS AND PODIATRISTS
AND CPD
The Society for Chiropodists and Podiatrists (SCP) also use the PebblePad personal learning space for their members to
create an eportfolio to evidence their CPD.
Neil Simmonite, a member of the Society’s
council, says: “Our eportfolio is incredibly
useful and, potentially, the single most
important avenue to engaging with members and supporting training.
“The system is easy to use and allows
members to record things easily and not
be consumed with learning to manage a
new piece of technology.”
This is a view also supported by fellow
SCP council member Peter Graham. “Our
eportfolio is easy to learn and this is critical
for uptake in CPD activities.”
“Our eportfolio is
incredibly useful
and, potentially,
the single most
important avenue
to engaging with
members and
supporting training”
WORKING IN HEALTHCARE
Working in health care settings requires
the delivery of safe, good quality care, risk
management procedures will exist as part
of the quality assurance mechanisms
employed by the service providers. HCPs
can find themselves in a position where
they need to provide a written statement
for risk management strategies that
require them to make sense of their role in
a given situation and to learn from them
for the good of all involved. Having a per-
The newspaper for leaders, influencers and decision makers
sonal space where they can explore their
practice and then share this confidentially
for guidance and support can assist with
this process and be of significant benefit.
At some time during their career some
individuals may be identified by management or their professional body as needing to develop their practice and will be
actively encouraged to pursue and evidence CPD around particular outcomes.
In a few cases there may be a Fitness to
Practice issue that is dealt with by the professional body responsible for the registrant, often the outcome identifies a need to develop practice through CPD and
reflective practice and
provide evidence of
this to the Professional body and the
employer. Having
a personal space
to develop this
and share their
progress
with
others would be
a positive developmental tool.
A PLS containing
records of learning,
reflective insights into
practice and logs of
activity can provide clear
evidence that a HCP has
made an effort to improve their
practice and maintain their cultural
competence within the workplace. These
ON THE JOB EXPERIENCE
I trained to be a Nurse, a Midwife and then
a Midwifery Teacher and have always been
required to provide evidence of CPD to my
employer and, if called to audit, to the
Nursing and Midwifery Council. I must
meet with a Supervisor of Midwives annually to discuss my development in relation
to clinical practice, if I cannot provide
evidence that I am currently up to date and
competent to be a Midwife I will not be
able to continue to practice. I use my PLS
to record evidence of any activity and
development related to my role as a Midwife. I now share my personalised eportfolio with my named Supervisor of Midwives which means that when my annual
review is due I just turn up knowing that
she has accessed my evidence of CPD
online, I no longer have to collate everything just prior to the review, I add it
throughout the year when and wherever it
happens and this is updated in her view of
my eportfolio online.
Sandra Orton, Interim Associate Director-Surgery, Supervisor of Midwives,
Queens Hospital NHS Foundation Trust,
said, “Reviewing Debbie’s CPD and Midwifery activity through her eportfolio
allows me to look back at any action points
set and review the development. It really
supports lifelong and life wide learning
and improves the efficiency of the annual
supervisory review.”
With increasing use of e-learning and
social learning in education and training as
well as the general use of technology in
social situations, the time is fast approaching when systems supporting recording
online CPD, personal learning and peer
review will become a natural choice.
For professional bodies there is massive
potential for both member engagement
and cost reduction.
For individuals, ease of use and the ability to reuse evidence for multiple purposes
provides a good incentive and for employers seeing development activities translate
into a skilled workforce who can reflect
upon how their training translates into
practice will provide them with a good
reason to get Personal.
Debbie Holmes is a consultant at Pebble
Learning, www.pebblelearning.co.uk
●
PrimaryCareToday Summer 2013
41