CPD Requirements Compared: NMBI vs Medical Council vs CORU vs PSI

If you work in Irish healthcare, "CPD" is not optional small print — it is a registration condition enforced by your regulator. But the four bodies that oversee Ireland's largest clinical professions do not all define it the same way. Some set a fixed annual credit target and audit it like an exam. Others use a reflective portfolio with no set hour count. One is in the middle of switching from the second model to the first. If you move between roles, supervise staff from more than one profession, or simply want to know what "compliant" actually means for your registration, it helps to see the four schemes side by side.

This article compares the CPD (continuing professional development) frameworks run by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI), the Medical Council, CORU and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI) — covering whether CPD is mandatory, how much of it is required, how compliance is checked, and what happens if you fall short.

NMBI: nurses and midwives, moving from principle to a formal audited scheme

Under the Nurses and Midwives Act 2011 and NMBI's Code of Professional Conduct, every registered nurse and midwife has a standing professional obligation to maintain their competence through ongoing learning. Until now, that has largely operated as a declaration-based expectation rather than a fixed, audited hour count: nurses and midwives have been expected to engage in relevant CPD and to be able to account for it, without NMBI running a Medical-Council-style annual credits system with routine random audit.

That is changing. NMBI ran a formal Professional Competence Scheme (PCS) pilot from January 2025 to April 2026 across 37 sites and just under 1,000 registrants, testing a structured model built around defined CPD hours and a linked practice-hours requirement, with pro-rata allowances for nurses and midwives in their first year on the register. NMBI has said the finalised scheme is expected to be published around November 2026, with a phased rollout targeted from early 2027, and it has explicitly discouraged services from adopting the pilot model early while the final design is being settled.

The practical implication for nurses and midwives right now: CPD is unambiguously mandatory in principle, but the mechanics of how it will be measured and audited are in transition. Anyone planning their CPD activity should track NMBI's updates directly rather than relying on the pilot figures as settled requirements. For a closer look at how the scheme is expected to work once finalised, see our detailed breakdown of NMBI's CPD requirements for nurses and midwives.

Medical Council: doctors and the Maintenance of Professional Competence scheme

Doctors have the longest-established and most prescriptive scheme of the four. Under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, every practising doctor on the Irish Medical Register must be enrolled in a Professional Competence Scheme run through a Medical Council–recognised body (such as the relevant postgraduate training college or faculty). The Council's Maintenance of Professional Competence (MPC) framework requires doctors to accumulate 50 CPD credits in each scheme year (running 1 May to 30 April), spread across defined categories rather than earned however a doctor chooses:

• Personal development planning — preparing and reviewing a professional development plan, worth a small number of credits.
• Practice review — a minimum credit requirement met through clinical audit, quality improvement work or practice evaluation (doctors not currently engaged in clinical practice can substitute additional work-based learning instead).
• Work-based learning — a minimum requirement covering reflective learning drawn from day-to-day clinical and non-clinical work, such as case discussions or peer review.
• External CPD — a minimum requirement met through accredited courses, conferences and workshops delivered outside the doctor's own workplace.

Doctors must keep evidence of completed activity — typically logged through their scheme provider's online portal — and retain records for a number of years in case of audit or verification. Because participation is a statutory condition of registration, non-engagement is treated seriously and can ultimately be escalated as a fitness-to-practise matter. Our companion piece on how the Medical Council's CPD categories work in practice goes through the credit split and category rules in more depth.

CORU: allied health professionals and a flexible, credit-based model

CORU regulates a wide range of allied health and social care professions — physiotherapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, dietitians, social workers, speech and language therapists, medical scientists and more — under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. As each profession's register opens for statutory regulation, CPD becomes a mandatory condition of continued registration.

CORU's model is built around credits rather than a fixed activity list: registrants must accumulate a minimum of 30 CPD credits within each rolling 12-month period, where one credit broadly equals one hour of new or enhanced learning (fractions of a credit — for example 0.25 for a short discussion — are allowed). Unlike the Medical Council's scheme, CORU does not pre-approve or accredit specific courses; instead, registrants choose learning activities relevant to their own scope of practice, which can include formal courses, supervision, reflective practice, journal clubs, teaching, research or informal workplace learning, provided it demonstrably contributes to new or enhanced knowledge and skills. Credits do not carry over if a registrant exceeds the requirement in one 12-month period.

Compliance is checked through random CPD audits: CORU selects a sample of registrants across each profession, who must then submit their CPD portfolio and supporting evidence through the registrant portal within a set timeframe. Deferrals are available for circumstances such as extended leave, assessed case by case. For a full walkthrough of the credit categories and audit process, see our guide to CORU's CPD requirements for allied health professionals in Ireland.

PSI: pharmacists and a reflective, portfolio-based model now becoming more frequent

Pharmacists' CPD sits legally under the Pharmacy Act 2007, which requires every registered pharmacist to undertake continuing professional development. Historically, PSI's approach has been the most qualitative of the four: rather than a fixed annual hour or credit target, pharmacists maintain a reflective, portfolio-based CPD record in an online ePortfolio, covering a balanced range of learning activities suited to their own practice setting and role. There is no points-accumulation system to hit — the emphasis is on demonstrating a coherent cycle of reflection, planning, action and evaluation, administered on PSI's behalf by the Irish Institute of Pharmacy (IIOP).

This model is changing in a significant way. Under the PSI (Registration) (Amendment) Rules 2025, PSI is moving from periodic review cycles — previously roughly every five years, with an exemption for pharmacists registered less than three years — to an annual ePortfolio review for all pharmacists registered 12 months or more, with implementation beginning in January 2027 (including pharmacists already selected for the 2025/26 review cycle). Crucially, the same rules give PSI the power to refuse an application for continued registration where a pharmacist has failed to meet their CPD obligations, putting compliance on a firmer statutory footing than before. Read more in our dedicated article on PSI's CPD requirements for pharmacists in Ireland.

Side-by-side comparison

The table below summarises the four schemes as they stand. Where a regulator does not publish a fixed hour or credit figure, that is stated qualitatively rather than estimated.

What the differences mean in practice

Two structural choices separate these schemes. The first is points versus portfolio: the Medical Council and CORU both use a defined annual credit or hour total, which makes compliance easy to measure but requires more record-keeping discipline throughout the year. PSI, by contrast, asks pharmacists to demonstrate a reflective cycle of learning rather than hit a number — harder to reduce to a single figure, but arguably better suited to varied pharmacy roles. NMBI currently sits between the two: a clear professional duty to engage in CPD exists today, but the detailed, auditable mechanics are still being finalised.

The second is how tightly CPD is tied to registration itself. All four regulators can, in principle, treat sustained non-engagement with CPD as a registration or fitness-to-practise issue, but PSI's 2025 rule change is notable for making that link explicit and immediate — a registration renewal can now be refused specifically for CPD non-compliance, rather than the matter being routed through a separate disciplinary process.

For anyone registered with more than one of these bodies, or moving between an allied health role and a role that falls under a different regulator, the practical takeaway is simple: don't assume your CPD record from one profession automatically satisfies another. Check the current cycle length, the credit or hour target (if any), and the audit process for each register you hold, and keep dated, activity-level records regardless of which scheme you're under — every one of the four expects evidence, not just a completed declaration tick-box.

Frequently asked questions

Which of the four regulators requires the most CPD hours per year?

Of the schemes with a published annual figure, the Medical Council's requirement of 50 CPD credits a year is the highest currently in force. CORU's requirement of 30 credits per rolling 12-month period is lower but still substantial. PSI does not set a fixed hour target, using a reflective portfolio model instead, and NMBI's finalised hour requirement has not yet been published while its new scheme is completed.

Is CPD legally mandatory for all four professions?

Yes. Nurses and midwives, doctors, the allied health professions regulated by CORU, and pharmacists are all subject to a statutory obligation to undertake CPD, set out respectively in the Nurses and Midwives Act 2011, the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005, and the Pharmacy Act 2007. What differs is how prescriptively each regulator currently measures and audits that obligation.

What happens if I'm audited and can't show enough CPD evidence?

The process varies by regulator, but the pattern is similar: an initial audit request for your portfolio or log, an opportunity to provide missing evidence or explain a shortfall (for example, due to leave), and — for sustained or unexplained non-compliance — escalation that can affect your registration, up to and including a fitness-to-practise or registration-refusal process. Genuine gaps caused by leave, illness or career breaks are generally considered case by case rather than treated automatically as non-compliance.

Do CPD hours or credits carry over if I do more than required in one year?

Under CORU's rolling 12-month model, surplus credits do not carry forward into the next period. The Medical Council's scheme is also structured around its own annual scheme year rather than a rolling bank of credits. PSI's portfolio model isn't points-based, so the concept of "carrying over" credits doesn't directly apply. NMBI's finalised carry-over rules, if any, will be confirmed alongside the rest of its new scheme.

Where can I find the official requirements for my own profession?

Always confirm current detail directly with your regulator — NMBI, the Medical Council, CORU or PSI — since cycle lengths, credit totals and audit rules are periodically updated (as PSI's and NMBI's current changes show). The profession-specific articles linked above go into each scheme's categories and audit process in more depth.

CPD compliance across Irish healthcare regulation is converging on the same basic principle — ongoing learning, evidenced and checked — even though the four bodies covered here have arrived at different mechanics for enforcing it. Whichever register you hold, the safest approach is the same: keep a running, dated record of what you learned and why it mattered to your practice, rather than trying to reconstruct a year's activity the week an audit letter arrives.

For more on any individual regulator, or to see how mandatory training and career entry requirements fit alongside CPD, see Learnsignal's complete guide to healthcare compliance and CPD training in Ireland.