What are the CPD requirements for GPs in Australia?

What a CPD home is

The centrepiece of Australia's CPD system is the CPD home. Rather than logging activities in isolation, every practising doctor belongs to an organisation accredited by the Australian Medical Council to run a CPD program, and that organisation plans, supports, records and verifies the professional development you do. Belonging to one is a requirement, not a choice you can skip. For GPs the CPD home is normally one of the two colleges, RACGP or ACRRM, though non-college CPD homes also exist.

One timing rule matters from the outset: you join your CPD home before you start doing CPD for the year, not afterwards. The CPD year runs on its own calendar, so setting your home up early means your activities count from the beginning. The Medical Board sets the framework and the colleges deliver it, and this guide sits within the wider registration picture.

The annual requirement

The headline number is 50 hours of CPD a year, deliberately spread across different kinds of professional development so your learning, your performance review and the outcomes of your care all get attention. Because the split can be adjusted, confirm it against the Medical Board CPD requirements on the day.

Within those hours there is a mandatory reflective element: a practice-based activity such as a clinical audit, a peer review or a performance appraisal. Australia moved away from a model that mainly counted educational points, which is why the largest single slice of the fifty hours sits in reviewing performance and measuring outcomes rather than in traditional learning. Your CPD home provides tools to do this.

The types of CPD

The three flavours of CPD answer three different questions about your practice. Educational activities answer "what do I need to know" through reading, courses and conferences. Reviewing performance answers "how am I actually doing" through peer review, appraisal and reflection. Measuring outcomes answers "what results is my care producing" through audit and outcome data.

For a UK GP, the closest familiar comparison is appraisal and revalidation, and the reviewing-performance strand will feel recognisable. Where UK revalidation runs on a five-year cycle anchored to a responsible officer, the Australian requirement is annual, sits with you and your CPD home, and has no separate revalidation on top, so it rewards a steady habit over a periodic scramble. It is one of the system differences covered in how general practice differs.

Choosing RACGP or ACRRM

If your CPD home is a college, and for most GPs it is, the choice mirrors the wider college decision: align your CPD home with the practice you do and the fellowship you hold or are pursuing. A GP working rurally with extended skills leans ACRRM; a GP in a metropolitan clinic leans RACGP. Both meet the Medical Board's requirement in full. You hold one CPD home at a time and can switch it if your work changes direction, so it is a reversible choice rather than a permanent one. Compare the two colleges in full in the RACGP vs ACRRM guide.

The professional development plan

Running through the whole system is the professional development plan, or PDP. Each year you set a short plan of what you want to learn and improve, and that plan shapes the CPD you choose, so your hours are directed at your development goals rather than collected at random. For a GP settling into Australian practice, the PDP is a natural place to target the things that are new, from the MBS to PBS prescribing to care plan items. The Medical Board sets out how PDPs fit the framework on its professional development plans page.

What this means for a new arrival

Sort your CPD home early. As soon as you are practising your CPD obligations apply, so joining a home at the start of your work, ideally during your supervised practice, means your activities count from day one and nothing has to be reconstructed at year end. It sits alongside the other early-practice housekeeping: your indemnity cover and provider number.

Your UK or Irish CPD

A fair question is whether the CPD you have already done in the UK or Ireland counts. Relevant professional development can often be recognised, but it has to fit the Australian framework and be recorded through your CPD home, which decides how activities map to the requirement. Do not assume a UK appraisal or Irish CPD simply transfers. Keep evidence of what you have done, join your Australian CPD home, and ask it directly how your existing activities are counted: some will map across, some will not fit the Australian categories neatly.

Staying on track through the year

The most common CPD mistake is timing: leaving it all until the final weeks. Fifty hours crammed into September is a miserable scramble, whereas a couple of hours spread across most months is barely noticeable. Record activities as you do them, book your reflective activity early rather than leaving the hardest element to last, and fold CPD into work you would do anyway: a puzzling case becomes a reflective note, a practice meeting becomes peer review, a guideline you had to read becomes an educational entry.

Sources

These are the primary sources behind this guide. Read them directly and confirm anything time-sensitive on the day.

Frequently asked questions