CPD Portfolio: your plan, log and evidence in one place

Most practitioners complete plenty of learning. The difficulty is usually the record. Certificates sit in email inboxes, conference attendance is half-remembered, reflections are written in a rush at renewal time, and the learning plan is reconstructed after the fact. When Ahpra audits a random selection of practitioners, or when a concern prompts questions about your professional development, a record built that way is hard to rely on.

CPD registration standards differ between Boards, but the shape of what is expected is similar: plan your CPD against your scope of practice and learning needs, complete activities that are relevant, reflect on how they affect your practice, and keep records that show all of this. The CPD Portfolio is built around that shape.

You choose your profession and set your annual target from your Board's current CPD registration standard. For example, the Medical Board's standard requires at least 50 hours a year with minimum amounts in educational activities and in reviewing performance and measuring outcomes, and membership of a CPD home. The Nursing and Midwifery Board's standard requires at least 20 hours a year for most registrants, with more for some endorsements. The Dental Board's standard works over a three-year cycle. The Psychology Board's standard includes peer consultation hours. The portfolio lets you track the categories that matter for you.

Boards review their standards from time to time, and Ahpra and the National Boards consulted in 2026 on revised CPD and recency of practice standards. Always check your Board's website for the current requirement and update your target if it changes. Our free CPD hours planner summarises each Board's core requirement as a starting point.

• 12 months of access to the CPD Portfolio in your student portal.
• Activity entries, reflections and attachments organised by CPD year.
• Automatic entries for Practitioner Ethics courses you complete, with the certificate attached; you add the actual time you spent.
• Evidence pack export at any time, so you keep your records after your access ends.

The portfolio is a record-keeping tool. It does not submit anything to Ahpra, a Board or a CPD home, and it does not decide whether an activity meets your Board's standard. Those judgements remain yours.

The reflection field is where most CPD records are weakest. A useful CPD reflection does not need to be long. Three questions are enough for most activities: what did I learn or notice, why does it matter for my patients and my practice, and what will I do differently as a result? Two or three honest sentences answering those questions are worth more than a page of summary.

For example, after a course on records, a weak entry says the course was informative. A useful entry says that you realised you rarely record the alternatives you discussed with patients, that this matters because your notes would not show the patient's choice, and that you have added a prompt to your template and will check ten records next month. That entry links learning to a specific change and a way of checking it, which is what Boards mean when they ask how CPD affects your practice.

If you want more structure, the Reflective Practice Workbook offers guided models, and the portfolio links each workbook reflection to the activity it relates to.