Continuous Professional Development for PAs

All physician associates are required to undertake Continued Professional Development (CPD) to remain up to date, enhancing and developing their skills to continue working as a safe practitioner and improve standards of care.

To remain on the Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register (PA-MVR) and a member of the Faculty of Physician Associates at the RCP (FPARCP), PAs are required to complete 50 hours of CPD per year. This is documented in their CPD diary and audited yearly by the FPARCP.

There is an annual minimum requirement of 25 hours of Type 1 (external) CPD. This could be gained, for example, from attending the FPA Annual Conference, the RCP Conference, specific conferences linked to the PA’s specialty, or standardised courses such as ALERT, ALS and ILS.

The remaining 25 hours of Type 2 (internal or personal) CPD can be gained, for example, from teaching students, undertaking clinical audits, reading journal articles and writing a reflective blog.

The breadth of CPD gained should be wider than the specialty in which the PA works in order to gain a broad educational and professional experience. It should also allow the PA to maintain their generalist knowledge and scope.

For more information visit the Faculty of Physician Associates website:

www.fparcp.co.uk

Recommended Training Courses

Below you will find news and events for PAs, PA students, PA educators, supervisors or employers. If you organising an event that may be of interest to any of the above, then please contact the SESPA team and we can advertise in this space:

Email the SESPA team on ks*************@nh*.net or se************@ro************.uk

In order to meet yearly CPD requirements it is recommended that physician associates plan ahead in terms of booking leave and external courses. There are an increasing number of conferences and specialist societies offering discounted rates on conference fees for PAs, so it is worth contacting conference organisers to ask.

Brighton and Sussex Medical School

In collaboration with the KSS School of PAs, Brighton and Sussex Medical School will be offering reduced price modules for a number of courses suitable for PAs. Discover the range of study options available to physician associates on a variety of subjects, provided by Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Many of their individual postgraduate taught modules are suitable for study on a stand-alone basis. The majority of their modules are run intensively over a five-day period and are delivered at the University of Brighton Falmer campus or at nearby NHS centers. These modules and courses offer the opportunity for physician associates to gather CPD points. Physician associates may add them to their online CPD Diary, with hours spent on the course as Type 1, and any additional private study hours listed as Type 2.

Visit their website for more information https://www.bsms.ac.uk/index.aspx

Faculty of Physician Associates events at the Royal College of Physicians

The Faculty of Physician Associates at the Royal College of Physicians runs a yearly clinically focussed conference which offers 12 hours of Type 1 CPD. It is a great opportunity to network as well as refresh areas of clinical practice that may not be in daily use.

Find out more from the FPA website https://www.fparcp.co.uk/professional-development/cpd

In addition the Royal College of Physicians has an excellent selection of CPD activities open to Physician Associates.

For more information see the CPD section of the RCP website https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/education-practice/courses/training-physician-associates

The Society for Acute Medicine

The Society for Acute Medicine (SAM) runs regular events offering type 1 CPD which will be of interest and educational value to PAs working in medicine in secondary care. More details can be found below:

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The British Geriatrics Society

The British Geriatrics Society conferences offer regular national and regional events with type 1 CPD. More details can be found below:

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The A&E survival course for doctors and ENPs (open to Physician Associates)

This Course has been running for over 15 years. It is now the largest radiology teaching course in the UK with more than 800 attendees each year.

Each one-day course provides a structured approach to interpreting radiographs obtained in the Emergency Department. The teaching program is based on short lectures, teaching quizzes at individual workstations and interactive tutorials.

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