Learn about the Medical Council’s new CPD requirements for 2025 – including the 50-hour annual target and four new CPD categories (Planning, Practice Review, Work-Based Learning, Accredited CPD). Find out what’s changed and how it impacts doctors in Ireland.
The New 50-Hour Annual CPD Requirement
The Medical Council’s revised Maintenance of Professional Competence (MPC) framework, effective May 2025, sets a clear annual target of 50 hours of CPD for every doctor. Under the new framework, doctors must record a minimum of 50 hours of CPD activity each year, which includes a required practice review (audit or quality improvement) within that total. This is a shift from the old framework, where doctors had to accumulate 50 CPD credits plus complete a separate clinical audit – roughly 60 hours of CPD work in total per year. (During 2024/25, this was temporarily reduced to ~50 hours due to COVID-19 accommodations.) The new 50-hour requirement aligns with international norms and simplifies compliance by counting quality improvement efforts as part of your CPD hours.
One thing that hasn’t changed is that you cannot carry over extra CPD hours into the next year – there’s no “banking” surplus credits for future use. Doctors should plan their learning activities to meet the 50-hour target within each May-to-April scheme year.
Four New CPD Categories
To structure these 50 hours, the Medical Council has introduced four broad categories of CPD under the updated framework:
- Planning CPD (max 5 hours): This involves creating a Professional Development Plan (PDP) at the start of the year. Each doctor must complete a PDP annually, which is a tool to reflect on your professional development needs and set learning goals. You can claim up to 5 CPD hours for time spent on planning your development.
- Practice Review (min 10 hours): This category covers activities aimed at reviewing and improving your medical practice. Doctors engaged in clinical practice are required to undertake at least one practice review project each year, such as a clinical audit, a quality improvement (QI) initiative, or a practice evaluation, which should total a minimum of 10 hours. These activities involve systematically examining your work (or your team’s) and implementing changes to enhance patient care.
- Work-Based Learning (WBL) (min 15 hours): WBL encompasses experiential learning gained from your day-to-day work. It involves reflecting on your clinical or professional activities to draw lessons and improve practice. Examples include learning through ward rounds, case conferences, peer review meetings, morbidity & mortality meetings, research or teaching activities, and other on-the-job learning experiences. The new framework formally recognizes and credits this kind of reflective, work-integrated learning.
- Accredited CPD Activities (min 20 hours): These are traditional educational activities that have been approved for CPD credit by a recognized body (e.g. your postgraduate training body or the Medical Council). You’ll need at least 20 hours per year from events like conferences, workshops, seminars, online courses, or other formal continuing education that provides accredited CPD hours.
These new categories represent a significant update from the old CPD scheme. Previously, CPD was reported in categories like “internal”, “external”, “personal”, and “research/teaching” credits. The Work-Based Learning category essentially combines and replaces the old internal, personal, and research/teaching categories with a more flexible, reflective learning approach. Meanwhile, the Practice Review category gives dedicated emphasis to quality improvement activities (which used to be just the “clinical audit” requirement).
Practising vs. Non-Practising Doctors: Tailored Requirements
Another important aspect of the 2025 CPD changes is the distinction between doctors who are actively practising medicine and those who are not in practice (for example, on a career break, working in a non-clinical role, or retired but retaining registration). The new framework explicitly differentiates the CPD requirements based on practice status:
- Doctors actively practicing medicine in Ireland must fulfill the full range of CPD categories each year. This means completing an annual PDP (up to 5 hours), one practice review activity (minimum 10 hours), about 15 hours of work-based learning, and 20 hours of accredited CPD. Added together, these components meet the 50-hour requirement.
- Doctors not engaged in practice (but still registered) are still required to complete 50 hours of CPD annually, but the composition is slightly different. Because a doctor not practising clinically might not have a practice environment to audit or review, they are not obligated to do a formal practice review project. Instead, they can make up those hours through other CPD activities. Specifically, a non-practising doctor needs to do an annual PDP (up to 5 hours), a mix of practice review and/or work-based learning activities totaling at least 25 hours, and 20 hours of accredited CPD. In other words, the 10-hour audit requirement is waived, but the doctor still must complete the equivalent amount of CPD through other learning avenues to reach 50 hours.
This tailored approach ensures that all doctors maintain their professional competence, while giving some flexibility if you are not in direct clinical practice. Regardless of practice status, all doctors must engage in CPD and meet the 50-hour total each year, but the new framework offers different pathways to get there.
Other Key Changes in the Updated Framework
In addition to the annual hours and categories, a few other notable updates have been introduced:
- Professional Development Plans are now mandatory: Under the old rules, having a PDP was encouraged but not required. Now, completing a PDP is a compulsory CPD activity for every doctor each year. This underscores the new framework’s focus on planned, reflective learning.
- Practice Review is part of your CPD hours: In the past, the required clinical audit was in addition to the 50 CPD credits. Now that audits (practice reviews) are counted within the 50-hour total, the overall CPD load is slightly reduced without sacrificing the audit component. You still must do a practice review project annually if you’re in practice, but it contributes to your CPD hours rather than sitting on top as an extra requirement.
- Pro-rata flexibility for part-year practice: The new MPC rules introduce pro-rata CPD calculations for doctors who are not enrolled for a full scheme year. If you join a Professional Competence Scheme late or take an extended leave of absence during the year, your CPD requirement will be adjusted proportionally. This change provides greater clarity and fairness for doctors who, for example, go on maternity leave or lengthy sick leave (more on this in a later post).
- Record-keeping requirements: Doctors are now formally required to retain evidence of their CPD activities for six years. In practice, this means you should keep certificates, audit reports, PDP documents, and any other proof of activities in case of audits by your scheme or the Medical Council.
- Covering the eight domains of good practice: The Medical Council expects doctors to maintain a well-rounded skill set. Under the new framework, over each three-year period you should cover all Eight Domains of Good Professional Practice at least once through your CPD. These domains include areas like patient safety, communication and collaboration, management, scholarship, professionalism, etc. By mapping your CPD activities to the eight domains, you ensure comprehensive development across all aspects of good practice.
In Summary: The Medical Council’s 2025 updates to CPD requirements aim to make ongoing professional development more structured, flexible, and reflective for Irish doctors. Every doctor will need to complete 50 hours of CPD per year, spread across the four new categories that balance planning, practical improvement, work-based learning, and formal education. Make sure to incorporate these changes into your annual learning plan. By meeting the requirements in each category – and taking advantage of the new flexibility (like pro-rata rules) – you can maintain your professional competence effectively under the updated Medical Council guidelines.
