What Counts as CPD for NMC Revalidation

The NMC’s CPD framework is broader than many registrants realise but narrower than wishful thinking allows. The test is relevance to your scope of practice, with evidence and reflection that proves the learning happened.

This chapter is the what-counts-and-what-doesn’t list. The framework that organises Part 5 of this guide.

The relevance test

The NMC requires CPD to be “relevant to your scope of practice.” That phrasing does most of the work:

• Relevant: the learning has to connect to what you actually do in your nursing role.
• Scope of practice: your specific registered area, not the wider profession.

A community mental health nurse can’t count tropical medicine CPD. A paediatric nurse can’t count geriatric care CPD as relevant unless they also work with elderly patients. A nurse manager can count leadership CPD because management is part of their actual role.

The relevance test is what makes the same training count for one nurse and not for another. Mandatory equality and diversity training counts as CPD for any clinical nurse because it applies to patient care. The same training for an HR administrator who happens to be NMC-registered but in a non-nursing role may not count.

Clearly counts

The range of activities the NMC accepts:

• Formal courses at all levels: short courses, certificates, postgraduate modules, master’s modules.
• Conference attendance for clinical sessions you attended (not networking, not meals, not the venue tour).
• In-service training delivered by your trust, provided it’s relevant to your scope.
• Mandatory training that’s directly relevant: safeguarding, IPC, BLS, sepsis, MCA, medicines management.
• E-learning modules in clinical and regulatory topics.
• Webinars (participatory if live with interaction; individual if catch-up).
• Reading: clinical journals, professional books, NICE guidelines, official guidance documents.
• Reflective writing: keeping a reflective journal that demonstrates learning.
• Teaching: preparing and delivering training to others. The preparation and delivery time both count.
• Mentoring student nurses or nursing associates under the NMC SSSA framework.
• Examining or assessing students.
• Quality improvement participation: audit cycles, root cause analyses, service improvement projects.
• Research activity in nursing contexts.
• Clinical supervision: both giving and receiving, when structured around learning.
• Journal clubs and peer-review meetings.

The NMC does not specify minimum durations for any of these. Half an hour of reading with a written reflection is half an hour of CPD.

Clearly doesn’t count

• Mandatory training not relevant to your scope: generic fire safety, generic basic health and safety, generic information governance for a non-clinical role.
• Operational meetings without a teaching component: handovers, ward rounds, MDTs purely for case management.
• Performance management activities: appraisal, 1:1 with line manager, supervision sessions structured around management rather than learning.
• Personal interest reading not connected to nursing work.
• Time spent on revalidation paperwork.
• Practice hours themselves: practice hours and CPD are separate requirements; the same time can’t count twice.
• Travel time to and from training unless explicitly part of the course.
• HR-mandated training unrelated to clinical practice (anti-bribery for finance roles, for example).

The grey areas

Some activities sit between the two lists.

Mandatory training of borderline relevance. Equality, diversity and inclusion training is borderline. Most clinical nurses can reasonably claim it as relevant to patient care under Code Section 1. The audit accepts this. Generic anti-bribery training is harder to claim unless you work in a context where it bears on your nursing practice (independent practice with commercial relationships, for example).

Conference networking. The structured sessions count; the networking doesn’t. The conference agenda is the easy reference: anything on the timed agenda for a session you attended is CPD; anything labelled “networking break” or “exhibition” is not.

Professional reading time. Reading professional journals counts as individual CPD when recorded with what you read, the date, and a brief reflection. Casually reading a clinical news app on your phone over coffee doesn’t, unless you write up a brief reflection on what you learned.

Evidence requirements

For each CPD hour:

• Date of the activity.
• Duration in hours and minutes.
• Title or description of the activity.
• Category: participatory or individual.
• Evidence: certificate, attendance confirmation, structured note, or reflective entry.
• Relevance: a short note on why the activity relates to your scope of practice.

For formal courses, the certificate satisfies most evidence requirements. For informal CPD (reading, peer discussion, journal clubs), a short structured note is what the audit needs.

The next chapter covers mapping your CPD activities to the 25 sections of the NMC Code: a practical way of demonstrating that your learning addresses the full breadth of practice.