If you’re a GP from the UK thinking about moving to Australia, you might be wondering how Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for GPs works in Australia under the RACGP. The good news is that the core idea is similar to the UK – you’ll need to keep up with ongoing education and skill development – but the Australian CPD system has its own structure and requirements. This friendly explainer will walk you through the essentials: how much CPD you need to do each year, what types of activities count, how GPs typically fulfill these requirements, what platforms and organisations support CPD, and the key changes introduced in 2023 by the Medical Board of Australia. By the end, you’ll have a clear picture of what to expect (and it might not be too different from what you’re used to in the UK!).
Annual CPD Requirements for Australian GPs (RACGP)
In Australia, CPD for GPs is now an annual cycle (no more multi-year “trienniums” like before). As of 2023, the Medical Board of Australia – in partnership with colleges like RACGP – mandates a set of requirements each year to ensure doctors engage in well-rounded professional development. If you join the RACGP (the Australian equivalent of the UK’s RCGP), that college becomes your CPD “home” and will guide you in meeting these requirements. In a nutshell, each year you need to do the following:
- At least 50 hours of CPD: Every GP must complete a minimum of 50 hours of CPD activities per calendar year. (This replaces the old system where CPD was measured in points over a three-year period.) The 50 hours are measured in actual hours of learning or practice improvement.
- Mix of Activity Types: Those 50 hours should include a balance of different CPD activity types – specifically, a combination of Educational Activities, Reviewing Performance, and Measuring Outcomes. (We’ll explain these categories in the next section.) In fact, the requirement is: 25 hours spent on activities that review your performance and measure patient outcomes (with at least 5 hours in each of those two sub-categories), plus 12.5 hours on educational activities, and the remaining 12.5 hours can be in any category you choose.
- Professional Development Plan (PDP): You need to write a brief PDP at the start of each year, outlining your learning goals and what areas you plan to focus on. This is a simple plan to personalise your CPD for your practice needs – and yes, creating the plan itself counts towards your CPD hours!
- Cover Key Topics: Each year, your CPD must include at least one activity that addresses each of these priority areas: culturally safe practice, addressing health inequities, and professionalism & ethical practice. These can be part of your regular CPD activities (they don’t add extra hours – for example, you might do a cultural safety workshop that also counts toward your educational hours). It’s a way to ensure GPs keep these important themes in mind.
- CPR Training: In addition to the 50 hours, specialist GPs are required to complete a CPR course at least once every three years. This is a hands-on requirement to maintain critical emergency skills. (If you’ve done Advanced Life Support or similar in the UK, that would tick this box, if it meets Australian Resuscitation Council guidelines.)
Important Note: These requirements apply to all practicing GPs, regardless of whether you work full-time or part-time – there’s no pro-rata reduction for part-timers. However, if you have a valid reason to be away from practice for an extended period (e.g. 6–12 months parental leave or illness), you can apply for a temporary exemption or reduction in the CPD requirements.
CPD Activity Categories: Educational, Performance Review, and Outcome Measurement
So, what do those CPD activity types actually mean? In Australia, CPD is broken down into three broad categories of learning activities. Ensuring you do a bit of each makes your professional development more well-rounded. Here’s the breakdown:
- Educational Activities (EA) – These are the traditional learning activities you’re probably very familiar with: for example, attending conferences or workshops, going to seminars, listening to medical podcasts or webinars, and reading journals or online articles to update your knowledge. Essentially, anything that expands your clinical knowledge or skills fits here.
- Reviewing Performance (RP) – These activities involve reflecting on feedback and evaluating how you are performing as a doctor. It’s about looking in the mirror at your own practice. Examples include sitting down with a peer or mentor to review a selection of your patient cases, undergoing a peer observation (having a colleague watch one of your consultations and give feedback), collecting patient feedback through surveys. Activities like case discussions at your practice meetings or a peer review club where GPs discuss difficult cases can also count as performance review. The idea is that you receive some form of feedback or insight into your practice and reflect on it to improve.
- Measuring Outcomes (MO) – These activities focus on quality improvement and looking at patient outcomes. Here you are looking at the data and results of your practice. For example, you might conduct a clinical audit (perhaps checking how well your diabetic patients are meeting blood pressure targets), review morbidity and mortality cases (M&M meetings), or participate in a quality improvement project to improve a clinical process. Even reviewing incident reports or doing a root cause analysis after a significant event falls under this category. Essentially, you’re measuring health outcomes or processes and using that information to make improvements.
Each year, you have to log a minimum of 5 hours in “Reviewing Performance” and 5 hours in “Measuring Outcomes” (making up 10 of the required 25 hours dedicated to these two areas). There’s flexibility in how you split the remaining time between RP and MO as long as together they sum to 25 hours. The educational category has a minimum of 12.5 hours required. The remaining 12.5 hours of “free choice” means you can do extra of whatever suits you best – many GPs use that to do more educational activities, but you could also put more time into audits or peer review depending on your interests. This balanced approach ensures you’re not just racking up hours by watching online lectures, but also actively reflecting on your practice and improving patient care
How GPs Complete Their CPD Hours in Practice
Fitting in 50 hours a year might sound daunting—but much of it happens naturally. Reading up on a clinical issue, discussing complex cases with peers, or reflecting on patient outcomes all count towards your CPD.
In practice, GPs earn their hours through a mix of:
- Everyday learning – like reading guidelines or case discussions
- Online modules – platforms like RACGP’s gplearning make it easy (and auto-log your hours)
- Workshops and conferences – great for intensive learning and networking
- Practice-based activities – such as audits, quality improvement, and peer feedback sessions
Once you get into the habit of logging what you’re already doing, reaching 50 hours is very manageable.
CPD Platforms and Support: RACGP CPD Home
One thing that might be new to you as a UK GP is the concept of a “CPD Home.” Under the 2023 CPD changes, every doctor in Australia needs to nominate a CPD Home – basically an accredited institution (usually a college or association) that will help you manage your CPD program. For general practitioners, the obvious CPD Home is the RACGP itself. When you become an RACGP member (which you would, to practice as a GP here), the RACGP acts as your CPD Home by default. They run a central online system called myCPD (accessible via the RACGP website or a smartphone app) where you record all your CPD activities. Through your myCPD portal, you can browse a huge catalogue of accredited CPD activities – everything from online courses to upcoming workshops – and directly enroll or record your participation. It’s not just a passive tracker; it actively helps you find quality activities and keeps all your evidence in one place. There are also other ‘homes’ available such as CPD Australia
Your CPD Home will:
- Help plan your annual CPD goals
- Provide access to myCPD, RACGP’s online tracker and activity hub
- Auto-record hours from RACGP and over 450 accredited providers
- Offer tools, reminders, and resources to stay compliant
You’ll also find plenty of other RACGP-approved learning options, like ThinkGP, local Primary Health Networks, and national events like GPCE.
The 2023 Changes at a Glance
Australia’s CPD system changed in 2023, shifting from a three-year points model to an annual 50-hour requirement. Key updates include:
- Annual 50 hours: Now measured in hours, not points
- CPD Home model: A central organisation (like RACGP) to manage and report your progress
- Professional Development Plan (PDP): A simple yearly plan outlining your learning focus
- Balanced learning: Must include at least 5 hours each of performance review and outcome measurement, plus 12.5 hours of education
- Core focus areas: Activities must touch on cultural safety, professionalism, and health equity annually
From a UK GP’s perspective, these changes might sound familiar in spirit. They mirror aspects of the UK’s appraisal and revalidation system – for instance, having a Personal Development Plan, doing quality improvement projects, getting multisource feedback, etc. The difference is that in Australia these are now explicitly quantified into annual hours. But if you’ve been through UK revalidation, you’ll likely find you’re already accustomed to reflecting on feedback and doing audits as part of being a good clinician. The transition to Australia’s CPD framework should be very manageable.
While Australia’s CPD system may look a little different at first, it shares many similarities with the UK approach—just with a clearer structure and annual tracking. With the support of RACGP and flexible ways to earn hours, most GPs find it easy to meet the requirements. It’s not just about compliance—it’s a great way to grow as a clinician and settle confidently into Australian general practice.
Understanding CPD Requirements for the RACGP PEP Specialist Pathway
If you’re planning to apply for the RACGP PEP Specialist Pathway, it’s important to familiarise yourself with the CPD requirements involved in the application process. One of the key components of your application is the Comparability Assessment, which determines whether your qualifications and experience are comparable to those of an Australian-trained general practitioner.
CPD Requirements for the Comparability Assessment
As part of your Comparability Assessment application, you need to provide evidence of 50 hours of CPD completed within 12 months prior to the date on which you sign your statutory declaration.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Your CPD activities must be clinically relevant to general practice.
- You must provide detailed evidence of your completed CPD activities, including:
- The type or nature of each CPD activity
- The date each activity was completed
- The number of hours attributed to each activity
- If your certificates do not specify the number of hours, you’ll need to provide a statement from the relevant international medical college (or similar authority) giving a conversion of credits or points to hours. The RACGP will not accept CPD points statements if they do not include the number of hours undertaken.
Ongoing CPD Requirements After PEP Program Commencement
Once you are enrolled and have commenced your PEP Specialist Pathway program in Australia, your CPD obligations will continue:
- You must complete 50 hours of CPD per calendar year, distributed across various CPD activity types.
- You will be automatically set up under the RACGP CPD Home, through myCPD
Understanding CPD Requirements for AHPRA’s Expedited Specialist Pathway
If you are applying for AHPRA’s Expedited Specialist Pathway, it’s important to understand when CPD evidence is required, and what your ongoing CPD obligations will be once you begin practicing in Australia.
When CPD Evidence is NOT required
You do not need to submit CPD evidence if you meet AHPRA’s recency of practice requirements:
- Practiced at least four weeks full-time equivalent (152 hours) in the last year, OR
- Practiced at least 12 weeks full-time equivalent (456 hours) over the last three years.
When CPD Evidence IS Required
CPD evidence is required if you have had a break from practice for a period between 1 and 3 years. In this case:
- You must provide documentation showing that you have completed one year’s worth of CPD activities to support your application. (50 hours CPD relevant to general practice)
Ongoing CPD Requirements (Once in Australia)
After commencing practice in Australia, you are expected to meet AHPRA’s ongoing CPD standards:
- Complete 50 hours of CPD each calendar year, distributed across various CPD activity types.
- As a General Practitioner, you must be connected to a CPD Home of your choice to help plan, manage, and record your CPD activities.
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Sources:
- RACGP CPD 2023–25 Program – RACGP outlines the annual CPD requirements (50 hours across Educational Activities, Reviewing Performance, and Measuring Outcomes) and the supporting framework for GPs racgp.org.au
- RACGP CPD FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions for GPs on the new CPD standard, including the breakdown of hours, PDP requirement, and examples of activities racgp.org.au
- Medical Board of Australia – CPD Registration Standard (from 2023) explaining the mandated 50 hours/year and category split (minimum 5 hours each of performance review and outcome measurement, 12.5 hours educational, etc.) medicalboard.gov.au.
- RACGP – “Your RACGP CPD Home” information, describing how RACGP supports GPs as a CPD Home with an online portal (myCPD) and thousands of accredited activities racgp.org.au
- RACGP myCPD Platform Details – Information on RACGP’s myCPD and gplearning systems, which allow GPs to log CPD, automatically record activities from 450+ accredited providers, and access online learning modules racgp.org.au.
- Medical Board / AMC – Examples of CPD activities in each category (educational, performance review, outcome measurement), illustrating what counts under the new framework medicalboard.gov.au
- RACGP – A guide to completing the PEP Specialist Stream Comparability Assessment racgp.org.au
- RACGP – PEP Specialist Continuing Professional Development racgp.org.au
- Medical Board of Australia – Expedited Specialist pathway medicalboard.gov.au