The Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK approves external CPD events (live events, live-streamed events/webinars and distance learning) for post-training physicians.
Only approved external events will appear on the RCP online database, which is available through the CPD diary.
CPD event approval – what you need to know
External events are defined as educational events that are targeted towards physicians from multiple hospitals and trusts. They can be regional, national or international.
Please note that the RCP does not approve internal CPD events or personal CPD activities. Internal events are targeted solely at physicians within one hospital or trust, while personal CPD activities are educational activities that physicians undertake informally in their own time. There is no formal approval process for these activities.
Guidelines and FAQs
Our CPD event approval guidelines and FAQs (which cover both live events and distance learning) are available over on our Federation CPD web site here.
- approval criteria
- details about the online application process
- administration fee information
- other relevant information.
Apply for CPD event approval
To register to use our online approvals system email cpdapproval@rcp.ac.uk, stating the name of your organisation and whether it is a commercial or not-for-profit organisation. You will then be issued with a username and password to access our online approvals system.
Conflict/Declaration of interests
Where any sponsorship is declared on the application, it is mandatory to provide conflict of interest or competing interest declarations attached to the application under step 7 (file uploads). This requirement is to ensure that we are approving the best quality educational meetings for CPD without any bias in favour of the sponsoring company that may detract from the educational content being delivered.
Retrospective applications
The Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians currently offers CPD approval for applications that are submitted to us retrospectively providing that they are submitted no more than 6 weeks after the event has taken place.
We strongly recommend applications are submitted at least 2 months in advance of the event date.