The NMC 35-Hour CPD Requirement Explained

The CPD requirement is two numbers and one principle. The numbers: 35 total hours, of which 20 must be participatory. The principle: the learning has to be relevant to your scope of practice, and you have to be able to demonstrate what you learned, not just that you attended.

CPD is the most flexible of the eight requirements. You choose what to study, how, and where. The trade-off is that you have to organise it yourself. Most employers won’t hand you a pre-built 35-hour package, especially outside the NHS.

The 35-hour rule

Across the three-year cycle, you complete 35 hours of CPD. That’s roughly one hour per month, but the average is misleading. Most registrants do it in bursts around study days, conferences and refresher training, not steadily through the year.

The hours are cumulative across the cycle, not annual. A nurse who does 25 hours in year one, 5 hours in year two and 5 hours in year three meets the requirement. The audit cares about variety and relevance, not even spread.

What the NMC doesn’t accept is concentration at one end. A submission where 30 of the 35 hours are dated in the last two months before the deadline tends to attract audit attention because it suggests panic gathering rather than ongoing learning. Practical floor: at least a few hours of CPD each year.

The 20-hour participatory minimum

Of the 35 total, at least 20 must be participatory. Participatory means another professional was present (in person or online) and there was some form of structured interaction.

Counts as participatory:

• Study days, training events, conferences where you attended sessions with other registrants.
• Webinars with live Q&A or discussion.
• Peer-review meetings, journal clubs.
• Mentoring and assessing students (your role as mentor counts as your participatory CPD).
• Clinical supervision sessions where learning was a defined outcome.
• Action learning sets.
• Multi-disciplinary team meetings with a teaching component.
• Practice-based discussion groups.

Does not count as participatory:

• E-learning modules with no live interaction.
• Pre-recorded video lessons watched alone.
• Reading articles, books, guidelines.
• Listening to podcasts.
• Watching webinars in catch-up mode after the live event.

The remaining 15 hours can be individual. Most registrants find they easily clear the 20-hour participatory minimum from study days alone, and the individual hours are extra rather than essential.

What “relevant to scope of practice” means

The NMC requires CPD to be relevant to what you do. A community mental health nurse can’t claim CPD for tropical medicine. A neonatal nurse can’t claim CPD for elderly care.

What “relevant” means in practice:

• Direct clinical relevance to the patient group or conditions you encounter.
• Underlying competencies you use daily: communication, safeguarding, medicines management, infection control.
• Leadership and management skills if you have leadership responsibilities.
• Research methods if you work in research roles.

Audit auditors check relevance by reading your reflective accounts. The accounts should explain what the CPD was about and how it relates to your work. Vague or generic reflection is the audit red flag.

What counts as CPD

The NMC’s definition is broader than many nurses realise:

• Formal courses: postgraduate modules, in-service training, conference attendance, mandatory training that’s relevant to scope.
• Reflection on practice: structured time reviewing complex cases, often with a supervisor.
• Practice development activities: leading a clinical improvement project, contributing to guideline development.
• Teaching: preparing and delivering training to colleagues. The preparation time and the delivery time both count.
• Examining or assessing students: marking, viva participation.
• Mentoring: structured mentor or supervisor role for students.
• Quality improvement activities: audit cycle participation, root cause analysis.
• Reading and self-study: clinical articles, guideline reviews, professional journals.
• Reflective writing: keeping a reflective journal that demonstrates learning.

What doesn’t count

• Mandatory training that’s not relevant to your scope: generic fire safety, basic health and safety, generic equality and diversity.
• Pure information sessions without a learning component: operational updates, policy briefings.
• Personal interest reading not connected to your nursing work.
• The time you spend on revalidation paperwork itself.

The boundary between relevant and not-relevant mandatory training is the one that trips most registrants. The test: if you applied the training in patient care this week, it’s relevant. Fire safety, generally no. Safeguarding adults, yes.

Planning across three years

A simple distribution that satisfies both the 35-hour rule and the audit’s expectation of ongoing learning:

• Year 1: 12 hours. One study day or conference (6 hours), plus 4 hours of e-learning relevant to scope (2 hours individual), plus 2 hours of peer-review or journal club.
• Year 2: 12 hours. Similar mix.
• Year 3: 11 hours plus any topping up needed. Plan one major conference or study day around month 24, then top up.

This pattern gives you natural participatory CPD from study days plus individual CPD from e-learning, distributed across the three years. Audit-friendly and not concentrated at one end.

The next chapter goes deeper on the participatory vs individual distinction: which activities qualify as which, and the common mistakes registrants make in classifying their CPD.