Professional Competence

All doctors who hold Specialist, General or Supervised registration with the Medical Council and practise for more than 30 days a year in Ireland, are legally obliged to enrol in a Professional Competence Scheme (PCS) and meet the requirements set by the Medical Council. This involves engaging in CPD activity, and recording/retaining supporting documentation relating to your CPD activities.

The ICO operates the Professional Competence Scheme for doctors practicing as ophthalmologists who are registered with the Irish Medical Council.

The ICO supports enrolled doctors in achieving, maintaining and developing their professional competence.

The Professional Competence Scheme year runs from May 1 to April 30.

Changes are being introduced to the PCS requirements from May 1st 2025.

Doctors must engage in and record a minimum of 50 points of CPD activity per year, made up as follows:

• Planning CPD – 5 CPD credits
• Audit/ Quality Improvement Project/ Practice Review – 10 CPD credits
• Work-based Learning – minimum 15 CPD credits
• Accredited Continuing Education – minimum 20 CPD credits
• Assign all eight Domains of Good Professional Practice at least once in every 3 years

PCS requires year-on-year compliance; there is no mechanism to ‘carry forward’ credits or competence from year to year.

Please refer to the below publications from which give broadened information on the new requirements:

Irish Medical Council Information Booklet for Doctors

RCSI PCS New Requirements

To implement the changes there will be a new PCS portal

• The new Portal will be accessed through a new weblink.
• All existing users will be able to sign-in using their existing username (your email address)
• A new password will be required - this new temporary password will be sent out to each person just before the changeover.

How You Choose Your Learning

As a PCS participant, you have the opportunity to shape your learning. PCS activity should be meaningful to your educational and practice needs.

Learning Outcomes

The ICO encourages you to focus on the learning outcomes of your activities - What did you learn? How has it helped your practice?

While there are minimum PCS requirements to be met, designing your own learning portfolio and choosing with a learning outcome in mind, will help you build skills that can directly improve your own skills and your workplace.

Eight Domains of Good Professional Practice

There are eight principles on which good practice is founded and set out by the Medical Council.

Referring to the eight Domains of Good Professional Practice will aid you in selecting a diverse range of activities, ensuring you have a balanced professional competence portfolio that encourages best practice.

1. Patient Safety and Quality of Patient Care
2. Relating to Patients
3. Communication and Interpersonal Skills
4. Collaboration and Teamwork
5. Management (including Self-Management)
6. Scholarship
7. Professionalism
8. Clinical Skills

For more information on the eight domains, please visit the Medical Council's webpage on Good Professional Competence.

We also recommend reading the Medical Council guidance on Professional Conduct and Ethics

Annual Statement of Participation

Your Annual Statement of Participation is an important document that has been approved by the Medical Council to show you have a formal record of participation in Professional Competence, as required by the Medical Practitioner's Act. The statement outlines what you have recorded on your PCS Account and will show if you have had your portfolio validated and the result of this process. It will also show if you have reported an absence from practice of three or more months during the PCS year (May to April).

The Medical Council may ask you for evidence of participation in a PCS and you can submit your Annual Statement of Participation as appropriate evidence.

At any time during the PCS year, you can access your statement by logging into your PCS Account.

Professional Development Plan

You are responsible for developing and implementing your plan for the PCS year, relevant to your roles and responsibilities. Your Professional Development Plan helps you reflect and plan learning events relevant to your scope and stage of practice. It is now a mandatory requirement and creating a plan attracts 5 CPD credits.

The Medical Council encourages doctors to engage in peer review and also review their plan at the end of every year. In addition, you can claim 1 CPD credit if you have your Plan reviewed by a peer/colleague and 1 CPD credit if you reflect on your plan at the end of the year.

ICO PCS Validation Audit

The ICO is required by the Medical Council to carry out an annual validation of activities recorded by doctors participating in a Professional Competence Scheme. Every year a random group of enrolled doctors is selected for validation. The PCS Account record of selected doctors is reviewed to check if they are meeting the minimum requirements of the Scheme. The evidence uploaded to support the activities recorded is also reviewed.

The ICO will contact you if you have been randomly selected and will provide support through the whole process. For more information please consult the ICO Guide to PCS Validation Audit on the Members Portal.

Participation in a validation process is indicated on the Statement of Participation. Please also be aware that the Medical Council will carry out a separate audit of scheme participants every year.

Retired Doctors

There are two categories of retired doctors:

Fully Retired Doctors

If you are no longer seeing patients and not participating in activity that requires registration with the Medical Council, it may be difficult to meet the Professional Competence requirements. If this is the case, you may wish to consider voluntary withdrawal from the Register

Partially Retired Doctors

You occasionally see patients or are engaged in activities that require registration with the Medical Council, e.g. tutoring, teaching, medico-legal work, professional advisor, etc.

From the perspective of patient safety, the responsibility to maintain professional competence applies to all doctors, regardless of their working less than full-time, or on an occasional basis.

Therefore, if you have partially retired you are obliged to fulfill your statutory duty to maintain professional competence and enrol and participate fully in a PCS.

For further information, please visit the Medical Council website. You also may find it useful to contact by phone or email the Medical Council Professional Competence Scheme section.

Prior to applying for CPD recognition, we advise that you please read the Guidelines for Educational Events Approval of CPD Points Process in full.

To apply, you will need to complete all sections of the online application form: ICO Application for CPD Recognition

You will also need to organise the following supporting documents and submit them to siobhan.kelly@eyedoctors.ie

• Medical Organiser’s Declaration (MOD) - Download the form
• Copy of your Invite/Programme for the event
• Copy of your template Post-Event Feedback (that your attendees will complete after the event)

Applications cannot be reviewed unless all instructions on the online form have been followed correctly and all supporting documents have been submitted in good order.

For information on the CPD - Support Scheme please visit https://www.eyedoctors.ie/trainees/CPD_Support_Scheme.asp