Let’s talk about Continuous Professional Development – often just referred to as ‘CPD’ for short – and why it’s important for dental nurses to keep up to date with it.

Once you become a qualified dental nurse and finally get your GDC number you’re relieved and excited! Hurray, the hard work is over and you are now a registered dental care professional on the General Dental Council Register. Congratulations!

However, now that you have gone through the hard work of acquiring your GDC number you need to look after it. Yes, you read that correctly.

The GDC tells us that it is important to keep your knowledge and skills for dental nursing up to date to ensure that you are able to provide care that meets the professional standards required for your qualification. For this reason, CPD is something that you are required to do for as long as you intend to hold your GDC registration.

Continuous Professional Development is undertaken through courses, lectures, training days, hands-on clinical training/workshops, clinical audits, attending conferences and e-learning. They are quantified by number of hours of learning.

The rules are different depending on when your CPD cycle started.

On the previous 2008-2017 CPD Scheme it worked as follows:

– Dental Nurses must complete at least 150 hours of CPD every 5 years.

– At least 50 of these hours need to be ‘verifiable’ CPD

– Verifiable CPD is an activity for which there is documentary evidence that one has undertaken the CPD (eg. a certificate from the CPD organiser)

The Enhanced CPD Scheme 2018 was brought into place on 1^st August 2018 for dental care professionals (which includes dental nurses). And this is a lot simpler!

– Every CPD cycle is 5 years.

– Dental nurses must do 50 hours of CPD per cycle – ie. 50 hours within 5 years

– At least 10 hours of CPD must be done every 2 years (you can’t leave 50 hours of CPD to be done within the last year of your cycle)

The GDC state that if your CPD cycle began during 2017 or before, you will be transitioning to the new scheme and a pro rata approach has been applied to how much CPD you still need to complete. Your eGDC account on the GDC website will clarify your specific amount left.

The GDC warns that if you do not comply with the CPD requirements, they may remove you from the register. Here is the good news: to avoid this we have created CPDs to help dental nurses ensure they meet their CPD requirements with ease. All SmileWisdom dental CPD courses are all ‘verifiable’ and meet the highest education standards – which helps you whether you’re in the 2008-2017 CPD Scheme or in the new 2018 CPD Scheme.

The GDC states that it is important that the CPD activity carried out is relevant for the role of the dental nurse. For that reason, all of our courses, training and extended learning are specifically tailored not only to help you meet your CPD requirements but also to give you skills that are useful to you as a dental nurse and in developing your career further.

Our CPD training cover Basic Life Support/CPR, Cross Infection Control, Impression Taking, Health and Safety etc

Click here for more information about our CPD courses

For more information, you can email training@smilewisdom.co.uk or give us a call on 020 7205 2299.

If you are looking for a job as a dental nurse we have the largest job board when it comes to dental nursing with 100’s of jobs from Bupa Dental Care and Portman Dental Care, plus we work with a growing number of independent practices. Have a browse and see what your future could look like.