What counts as CPD for an endorsed midwife?

What counts as continuing professional development for Endorsed Midwives?

With so many rules and regulations surrounding midwifery endorsement, there is understandably some confusion about what exactly counts as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for Endorsed Midwives. And when it's your registration on the line, it’s always best to go to the source of the rules and that means AHPRA and the NMBA for information about these things-although it’s not easy to find a written record of exactly what CPD means for endorsed midwives.

The Registration standard: Continuing professional development information from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2016) indicates that CPD for a “Midwife with a notation and/or scheduled medicines endorsement” requires 20 hours CPD for midwifery registration and an additional “10 additional hours relating to context of practice, prescribing and administration of medicines, diagnostic investigations, consultation and referral”.

So, the CPD for an individual midwife can relate to their prescribing, administration of medicines, diagnostic investigations, consultation, referral, and context of practice, which may include CPD around postnatal care, lactation support or antenatal education. This is a very individual aspect of private midwifery, and each midwife will need to decide what their context of practice is.

So what does context of practice mean, according to AHPRA?

The Fact sheet Continuing professional development published by NMBA / AHPRA tells us that

“Context of practice refers to the conditions that define an individual’s nursing and/or midwifery practice.

These include:

• the type of practice setting (e.g. clinical care, management, administration, education, research)

• the location of the practice setting (e.g. urban, rural, remote)

• the characteristics of patients (e.g. health status, age, learning needs)

• the focus of nursing and/or midwifery activities (e.g. health promotion, research, management)

• the degree to which practice is autonomous, and

• the resources that are available, including access to other healthcare professionals.”

Looking at that definition, CPD could include learning around management, or rural midwifery or any type of clinical care an individual midwife is providing.

The Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines for midwives published by the NMBA indicates that “Context of practice means the parameters that define an individual’s midwifery practice. These include practice across the continuum of care, antenatal care, intrapartum care, postnatal care and lactation support”.

So, any aspect of antenatal, intrapartum, postnatal care or lactation support may fall under the context of practice for an individual midwife.

Considering this and looking at the program for the 2021 Australian Endorsed Midwife Conference as an example, all of the sessions could be counted as CPD for an endorsed midwife, depending on the specific services they provide. The conference was accredited for 12 CPD points by the Australian College of Midwives (ACM), so the entire 10 hours required for CPD as an endorsed midwife may well be obtained through attendance at the conference.

The plan is to ensure that the 2022 conference will be recognised for CPD points by the ACM, making this the only additional education you need! All in one place and with the opportunity to meet other endorsed midwives, or those working towards endorsement.