New online service for physiotherapists takes pain out of HPC-compliance

July 1, 2010 - PRLog -- JULY 1, 2010, HAZEL GROVE, CHESHIRE, AND YORK, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND – A top Cheshire physiotherapist has teamed up with a leading Yorkshire IT firm to launch  my-cpd, a new easy-to-use online service for her profession at http://www.my-cpd.co.uk . my-cpd keeps up-to-date and accurate records of physiotherapists' continuing professional development (CPD) as required by the Health Professions Council (HPC) and other industry bodies.

The web-based service is the brainchild of physiotherapist Julia Trevor who runs a private practice in Hazel Grove, Cheshire, and was formerly a physio at Sale Sharks rugby club and Manchester Storm ice hockey team.

The Health Professions Council has required its registrants to undertake CPD since July 2006 and to keep a mandatory record of their CPD activities. Physiotherapists became subject to HPC audit in February, 2010. If selected for audit, they have to submit a summary of practice for the last two years, a statement of how they meet the HPC's CPD standards and supporting evidence in order to stay HPC-registered. Failure to produce these records or failure to show how physiotherapists' development meets HPC standards means their re-registration can be rejected meaning that they can potentially no longer practice.

my-cpd records physios' progress in a format that makes it easy to produce a CPD summary and statement as well as providing a resource centre packed full of advice to help physios get the full benefit from the full range of activities that qualify as CPD.  

Trevor, who specialises in musculoskeletal conditions, says: "Busy physios are always involved in activities that count toward their CPD, but they either don't know it or, if they do, they fail to record them. And if physios do make records of their CPD activities, they tend to jot them down on a variety of pieces of paper. I knew myself that sitting down after a year or so and trying to put a proper record together was a real pain, so I thought of a method that would make sense to myself and my colleagues."

my-cpd is aimed at all physiotherapists in the UK from managers through to frontline clinicians whether they work in the NHS or private practice. Trevor exhibited a demo version of my-cpd at the annual Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP) Congress in Liverpool in October, 2009 and at the Physio First conference for physiotherapists in private practice in Nottingham in May, 2010. She received overwhelmingly positive feedback and incorporated many suggestions from delegates into the my-cpd web service.

For an annual subscription of £60, my-cpd's drop-down menu format and email reminders prompt users to log the activities they should be getting the credit for in their CPD profiles. It records activities in a format that makes it very easy to produce an HPC-compliant CPD statement. The my-cpd online application also helps physios reflect on their experiences at work and get a clearer picture of their career pathways as well as being a practical aid to personal development planning and CV composition. Plus, my-cpd provides safe online storage for training certificates and other important documents that are relevant to their progress.

"We have made my-cpd as easy to use as possible," says Trevor. "If you can book a flight or buy a book online, you can use my-cpd. And for more techno-friendly physios, we are developing a version that can be accessed from mobile phones and PDAs."

Trevor teamed up with York-based business system developer RedBlack Software to create my-cpd.

RedBlack Software's managing director, Jane Tyler, says: "Julia came to us with a refreshing approach from a physiotherapist's point of view rather than a technical standpoint. The result is a very practical application aimed at busy physios that they will actually use. Early-adopter examples of such systems have reportedly suffered from potentially frustrating complexity; my-cpd's main interface presents just about everything you need on one screen."

For further information see the my-cpd website at http://www.my-cpd.co.uk or contact:

Seamus Quinn
Cue Communications
07846 102192
seamusquinn1@yahoo.co.uk
or

Julia Trevor
Managing director, my-cpd
07976 560855
julia@my-cpd.co.uk

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