Want to know what's the difference between the Continuous Professional Development Support Scheme and the Professional Competence Scheme?
Professional Competence Scheme (PCS)
Under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, all doctors who are registered with the Medical Council (of Ireland) are required to maintain their Professional Competence in line with requirements set by the Medical Council. This legal requirement came into effect from May 2011. Schemes will be operated by postgraduate training bodies.
Doctors are legally obliged to maintain their professional competence by enrolling in the professional competence scheme and following the requirements set by the Medical Council. Schemes are in place for all registered doctors on the Specialist, General and Supervised Division of the Medical Register.
Doctors practicing medicine in individually numbered, identifiable training posts approved by the Medical Council will fulfil maintenance of professional competence requirements by virtue of being registered in the trainee specialist division. No further action is required by these doctors in training posts other than satisfactory pursuit of training.
For full details of Professional Competence requirement please visit the Medical Council of Ireland’s website
Continuous Professional Development Support Scheme (CPD-SS)
Continuous Professional Development Support Scheme (CPD-SS) is funded by National Doctors Training and Planning, via the various training bodies and have been developed with a view to providing NCHDs who are not on a formal training scheme with a suite of professional educational activities which will assist them in fulfilling some of the requirements of the Professional Competence Scheme.
More information about the scheme is available in the recently published CPD-SS-Guidance-Document
The courses available to all NCHDs registered on the CPD-SS from August till December 2024 CPD-SS-August-December-2024
