The impact of continuing professional development on doctors performance and patient outcomes

Published 1 April 2013

What were the findings?

Continuing professional development (CPD) tends to be better integrated with appraisal in primary care. In secondary care, it's more fragmented. There is more limited integration and alignment with appraisal and organisational priorities.
During continuing professional development, the emphasis tends to be on the activity itself. Little thought is given to later implementation and action. Primary care organisations are better able to evidence the outcomes arising from the implementation of discrete CPD activities.
The employer usually provides only limited quality assurance and quality enhancement of CPD activities.
Doctors recognised the importance of reflection to good continuing professional development. But many struggled to know how to do this effectively. We will do further work to help doctors with this.