Objective activity
An objective activity is one of the requirements of the CPD scheme and this is where you seek external objective feedback. The idea is that the feedback is ‘objective’. This means that it brings another perspective to your practice which you can then analyse and reflect on to show how you will develop your practice or future CPD.
Your three-year CPD cycle needs to include at least one objective activity and might include:
- a case-based discussion where you discuss a real or imaginary case with a colleague and seek feedback on your practice
- patient feedback, which is a way of getting objective feedback on your practice from patients, watch this webinar for a more detailed overview
- Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), which can be used to gather anonymous feedback from patients
- peer observation, when you are observed in practice by a peer which may include clinical or educational (this is not the same as the Peer Discussion Review)
- a clinical audit which uses data from your own practice in order to generate new insights
If you’re just starting out and you’re not sure where to begin, or if you want some inspiration as to which activity to do next, you might find this decision tree helpful. You might be interested to know that many osteopaths have told us that doing a case-based discussion is a good objective activity to start with.
An objective activity involves:
- Getting external objective feedback on your practice
- Analysing the results of this feedback
- Reflecting on this analysis to think about how you could enhance your practice
- Showing each stage of the objective activity in your CPD records, including how it will or has informed your future practice
We have produced a number of practical CPD workbooks, three of which focus on supporting osteopaths with objective activities. You might find it helpful to work through some of the following:
More resources are available in the dedicated resources section.