FAQs

Professional competence is a formal way of recording your lifelong learning as a doctor and highlighting your dedication to developing and maintaining key skills and competencies throughout your medical career.

If you hold Specialist, General or Supervised registration with the Irish Medical Council, you are required by law to maintain your professional competence and enrol on a Professional Competence Scheme operated by a postgraduate medical training body relevant to your scope of practice.

We offer a suite of CPD activities through our Continuous Professional Development Support Scheme (CPD-SS). To view the full range, please visit the CPD–SS section of the RCSI website.

RCSI also approves educational events which take place in Ireland and are organised specifically for the purposes of external CPD. Please visit the online calendar of approved events on the PCS Portal for details.

The Statement of Participation is a key document in the formal PCS.

The statement summarises what you have recorded and will indicate if you have had your uploaded activities verified and the outcome of this process. It will also indicate if you have reported an absence from practice of three or more months during the PCS year.

The Irish Medical Council may ask you for evidence of participation in a PCS and your annual Statement of Participation is appropriate evidence for this purpose. You can access your statement by signing into your PCS Portal at any time. Go to the ‘my summary’ section and click on ‘view’ button. Your six-year summary will open, and you can click on the view/download statement button. Your statement will download, and you can print or save this document.

The Medical Council may ask you for evidence of your engagement in a Professional Competence Scheme. The annual Statement of Participation issued by RCSI is the only evidence of engagement the Medical Council will accept.

Sign in to the PCS Portal – go to the ‘my summary’ section on the PCS dashboard view. You can download/print your Statement of Participation from here.

Your statement will remain as ‘unverified’ until such time as you are selected for an RCSI verification audit. We are required by the Medical Council to verify the portfolio contents of 3-5% of participants every year. We commence this verification process in June/July and those who are selected for verification this year will be notified by email.

This is a supportive exercise aimed to promote confidence in what doctors are recording, identify best practices in maintaining competence, identify shortfalls and provide support to assist doctors who find it difficult to meet the PCS requirements.

If you are registered on the 'Supervised', 'General' or 'Specialist' division of the IMC Register, you are required to be enrolled on a PCS. You must be enrolled in order to demonstrate you are actively maintaining your professional competence in a manner recognised by the Irish Medical Council.

When you apply to retain your registration with the IMC, you are required to declare the name of your PCS and the date you enrolled, or renewed your enrolment, on that scheme. Failure to make this declaration will place your continuing registration at risk.

You are legally required to enroll in a PCS if you:

• Hold Specialist, General or Supervised registration with the Irish Medical Council
• Practice in Ireland for more than 30 days in a given year

Non-payment of the PCS annual fee places your continuing enrolment on your PCS at risk.

Doctors must enrol in a scheme within 60 days of the commencement of the scheme year on 1 May. You must pay the renewal fee every year for professional competence in order to stay enrolled on your scheme.

Go to the PCS Portal and sign in to renew your enrolment. The Medical Council will ask you to confirm your enrolment on its annual retention form.

As you know, all doctors on the Specialist, General or Supervised Division of the Medical Council Register are required by law to be enrolled on a PCS and record a professional development plan, sufficient CPD credits and practice review.

The Medical Council requires all doctors to pay their professional competence renewal fee before renewing their Medical Council registration. They must enter the name of their PCS and the date they paid their renewal fee on their annual retention form.

No. However, on an annual basis, when renewing your Medical Council registration, you will be asked to declare, in good faith, that you are enrolled in a scheme and are maintaining competence in line with requirements.

Yes. Many doctors, for various reasons, do not practise medicine for a certain period of time during their career. Leave from practice can have an impact on your ability to meet the legal minimum professional competency requirements and this may then be reflected on your annual Statement of Participation.

Examples of circumstances that may result in a shortfall in minimum requirements are:

• Maternity leave
• Certified sick leave
• Carer's leave
• Parental leave
• Bereavement leave
• Adoptive leave

Where possible, you should maintain some level of engagement in the maintenance of your professional competence while on leave. You should sign in to your PCS Portal. Scroll to the ‘make a request’ section on your dashboard and click on ‘confirm extended absence from work’. Here you can complete the online form.

RCSI will record your absence. If your absence has occurred for three months or more during the professional competence year (which runs from 1 May to 30 April), the reported absence will be recorded on your annual Statement of Participation.

If you remain on the IMC Register while on sabbatical or an extended holiday, you are expected to continue to meet your professional competence requirements.

The IMC does not operate a system where a doctor who may not be practising and therefore unable to meet the professional competence requirements can stay on the register. If absence from practice is going to have an impact on your ability to meet professional competence requirements, you should consider whether or not to remain on the register.

If you do not practice medicine and do not intend to practise medicine for the foreseeable future, the IMC advises that you voluntarily withdraw from the register.

Events organised in Ireland

Educational events organised specifically for the purposes of CPD may be eligible for CPD approval under the 'External' CPD category. For example, an academic or scientific meeting organised by society. Where such events are aimed at one or more of the specialities for which RCSI is the recognised training body, an application for CPD approval may be submitted.

Events organised outside of Ireland

Approval for an educational event must be sought from the local jurisdiction. Overseas organisers who wish to host an event in Ireland must seek approval from the relevant Irish training body. Irish organisers seeking approval for an event hosted abroad should contact the European Accreditation Council for CPD (EACCME) for information on European approval or relevant local jurisdiction.

Multi-disciplinary events

Where an event is of educational interest to multiple disciplines, all postgraduate medical training bodies (PGMTB) have agreed to mutually recognise and accept the other PGMTB recognition. Therefore where approval has been granted and CPD credits have been awarded by one of the PGMTB, further approval from the other PGMTB is not required. Please note that this only relates to CPD events that are multidisciplinary in nature.

The following activities will NOT be counted as an educational time for the purposes of CPD:

• General – Registration time, breaks, lunch or dinner, award or prize-giving ceremonies, announcements and so on, are not eligible for CPD approval.
• Product promotion – Activities organised primarily to promote a product or service or which might be deemed as promotional are not eligible for consideration for CPD approval.
• Unmoderated poster viewing – Poster viewing sessions may only be approved for CPD if a surgical moderator is present at all times.
• Speeches – Opening/closing speeches are not eligible for CPD approval.
• Business committee meetings – AGMs or other business or committee meeting is not eligible for external CPD approval.
• Other disciplines – Sections of an event aimed specifically at other surgical disciplines (nursing, physiotherapy etc.) are not eligible. 
• Live surgery events – Events that involve live surgery performed in the teaching of surgical skills to an audience.

A CPD certificate of attendance for an event or activity granted by one Irish postgraduate training body or faculty is accepted by the other training bodies as evidence of a doctor's participation in that activity.

You only need to apply for CPD approval to one training body. RCSI approves educational events which take place in Ireland and are organised specifically for the purposes of accredited continuing education (CE) activities.

The Medical Council requires that records are kept for a period of six years, (current PCS year plus previous five years), to fulfil obligations under the MPA 2007.

The RCSI Professional Competence Scheme is committed to ensuring it conducts its business in a way that upholds and promotes the privacy rights of individuals. The legislation governing the use of personal data is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Under the principle of storage limitation, we are required to hold personal data for no longer than necessary for the purpose by which it was obtained. Ensuring personal data is disposed of when no longer needed helps to reduce the risk that it will become inaccurate, out of date or irrelevant.

The Medical Council requires that records are kept for a period of six years, (current PCS year plus previous five years), to fulfil obligations under the MPA 2007.

According to these principles, the RCSI Professional Competence Scheme must only collect, use and store the personal data it requires to fulfil the legitimate business purposes that it has identified. The principle of data minimisation requires us to identify the minimum amount of personal data needed to properly fulfil the business purpose. We should collect and hold no more than this minimum amount.

The Medical Council has confirmed that they will reinstate their PCS declaration on the annual retention application form (ARAF).

If you are registered on the General, Supervised or Specialist divisions of the Medical Council you will be asked to declare the following:

• If you are enrolled in a Professional Competence Scheme for the PCS year
• If you have recorded the annual minimum CPD requirements for the PCS year

If you have not recorded the required credits, then it would be appropriate to tick NO to statement 2: ‘I have achieved the annual minimum CPD requirements for the Scheme Year [YES/NO].’

You can find more information on the Medical Council ARAF here.