Personal Development Plans

Synonyms: personal learning plans, continuing professional development

Personal development plans (PDPs) and personal learning plans (PLPs) are part of the concept of continuing professional development (CPD) and GP appraisals. PDPs are a means to identify educational need and to document and hence demonstrate that need has been addressed. They are likely to become a requirement of GP accreditation in the future, and together with the Practice Professional Development Plan (PPDP) give the individual and practice a structure to manage and demonstrate a continuous development programme.

The General Medical Council states that:¹

• You must keep your knowledge and skills up to date throughout your working life.
• You should be familiar with relevant guidelines and developments that affect your work.
• You should regularly take part in educational activities that maintain and further develop your competence and performance.
• You must keep up to date with, and adhere to, the laws and codes of practice relevant to your work.

The principle of CPD is that it should be relevant to the doctor's practice, so should:²

• Take into account the context and environment of their practice
• Explore the benefits of learning across professional disciplines and boundaries

Doctors need to keep themselves up to date in all areas of Good Medical Practice. These are:^2,3

• Good professional practice
• Maintaining good medical practice
• Relationships with patients
• Working with colleagues
• Teaching and training
• Probity
• Health

For UK general practitioners, agreeing a PDP is part of their annual appraisal.

• Last year's agreed PDP can be updated to mark development tasks as completed.
• Any needs requiring further thought or action can then be ‘brought forward’ into the proposed PDP to be considered for further discussion in the next appraisal meeting.
• The proposed PDP and agreed PDP should be completed by the appraisee. The agreed PDP should be signed off by the appraiser.

PDP goals⁴

These should fit with the SMART objectives, meaning that the tasks should be:

• Specific - specified learning activities, not general statements
• Measurable - possible to assess whether they have been achieved
• Attainable - possible to achieve
• Realistic - within the doctor's capability
• Timed - agreed time for achieving and reviewing

The PDP portfolio contains information about the doctors's current practice, educational activities and any available feedback on their performance. This is then used to prioritize and direct the next PDP, and to provide evidence that the PDP is being addressed. The PDP portfolio may contain:

1. An up-to-date curriculum vitae
2. Current posts, roles and responsibilities; both in the practice and outside
3. Practice profile - demographic details that perhaps highlight areas for concern/development. Health improvement goals.
4. Personal developmental goals (medical and non-medical), each with a stated time period
5. Evidence of personal self analysis
   • Learning styles assessment⁵
   • Myers Briggs and/or Belbin personality assessment
   • Copy of minutes of annual appraisal
   • Reflective Diary (can include planned educational activities in the future)
6. Documentary evidence of methods used to demonstrate a learning need: with summaries of meetings or notes from personal study to demonstrate how the need was met:
   • Significant event audit or analysis
   • Random case analysis, or clinical diary of interesting cases
   • PUNs and DENs - (Patients Unmet Needs identified in a consultation, translated into a Doctor's Educational Need)⁶
   • Personal and practice audits
   • Video consultation analysis
   • PACT analysis - review of prescribing habits
   • Details of any "Risk assessments" carried out.⁷
7. List of educational meetings attended in the last 3-5 years, with minutes/summaries/learning points. These could vary from "in house" meetings with partners or interaction with peers to distance learning courses. Try and demonstrate that a previously identified learning need has been met (perhaps by a subsequent audit, or just a paragraph indicating how your practice has changed following the educational activity).
8. A retrospective evaluation of last years PDP: good and bad points; lessons learnt; which ways of addressing learning needs worked and which failed, and why.