Are you ready to get started with revalidation? P3 speaks to Os Ammar, head of continuing fitness to practise at GPhC, to find out more

Q. What are the key changes and why?

We’ve reduced the amount of information that people need to record on their continuing professional development to allow people to have more time to do two new things: a peer discussion and a reflective account. Hopefully what we’ve done is listened to what pharmacy professionals thought about our old system for CPD and made what they now have to do more meaningful to them and their practice.

Q. And what do people need to think about now?

The first thing is really quite basic. Have you got your letter from us to log into the new system? The letter has a code in it and people should try to do their first time login as soon as they possibly can. If they haven’t heard from us by the end of April they should get in touch with us.

Q. Will the process be very different?

The best thing for people to do now is to read through the information and get acquainted with it, and do their first time login. Once they are logged on they can see the new recording format for CPD and can make a few entries if they want. They don’t need to submit them now, but they can try a few entries and see how it works for them.

Q. Will people need to be more organised about their CPD?

In this first year, it will be less of a problem for somebody if they leave it to the last minute, but next year when they need to have had and have recorded a peer discussion, leaving that to the last minute will be problematic. So people need to be thinking and planning ahead.

Q. Will the new system be more work?

The evidence isn’t definitive here, but we did look at this as part of the evaluation. It looks like it will be about equitable, but its very hard to say that because it’s about how the individual engages with it. In this first year it should feel like less work, but that is giving people time to adapt to the work they need to do; to find a peer and to do a reflective account.

Q. How quickly do people need to find a peer?

There is plenty of time. The first people who need to submit a peer discussion will not have a deadline until October 2019. So people don’t really need to start thinking about it until October 2018. There will be further guidance coming for the registrant and their potential peer, and we are going to be working with organisations in pharmacy to help them to help our registrants.