The HPCSA has made an important change in terms of monitoring CPD compliance

Dear Focus on Health member,

Some important changes have been made in monitoring compliance when it comes to Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

• The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has done away with random audits linked to specific time frames and will now require of you to illustrate continuous compliance by uploading certificates of activities when completed. The implication is that you will no longer upload your Individual CPD Activity Record (IAR).
• One outcome is that you will not be able to access your practitioner’s card / proof of registration after paying your annual HPCSA fees if you are not compliant. This was the dilemma faced by some practitioners when paying their 2020 fees.

If you received the email from the HPCSA requesting you to upload proof of CPD compliance, please don’t panic or worry about this! We are there to help you throughout this process including provision of CPD activities and uploading your certificates.

Reach out to us by sending an email (safocus@iafrica.com), completing an “audit assistance” request on the website, sending a whatsapp to 074 230 3874 or leaving an offline message on the TAWK functionality (right bottom of website). Include your HPCSA registration number or your FoH membership number. After you have reached out to us also follow the next two steps:

1. Register on the “new” HPCSA online platform
2. Complete our consent form

To manage these expected changes, Focus on Health will:

• Upload individual CPD certificates to the HPCSA’s website on your behalf
• Assist you should you, while paying your annual HPCSA registration fee, be required to provide proof of CPD compliance
• Liaise with professional boards to ensure you are kept in the loop with regard to possible changes to the CPD system
• Pro-actively adapt its CPD offering to reflect changes required.

To this effect, we are increasing our membership fee with R50.00 to ensure we are able to navigate a changing CPD system. We will also be offering a CPD administration membership which allows exclusively for the administration of your CPD portfolio but does not include any activities through which you can earn CEUs.

Our pricing policy for 2021, while much the same as that of 2020, are:

• An early-bird, discounted fee is payable on all accounts if fully paid up before the end December 2020
• Between June – August the published fee is applicable
• After August, all accounts not fully paid up will increase with 20%.

The FoH team