14 May 2026
Plan-Do-Reflect: the pharmacist CPD cycle the Board expects
The Pharmacy Board of Australia structures CPD around a Plan-Do-Reflect cycle. Here's what each phase requires, what makes a good plan, and how to log the cycle so audit isn't a surprise.
The Pharmacy Board of Australia's CPD standard doesn't just ask you to do CPD activities — it asks you to cycle through them in a structured way: Plan, Do, Reflect. The cycle is the structure the Board expects each activity to follow, and it's what an audit will check.
Here's what each phase actually means.
Plan
Before you do an activity, you should be able to answer:
- What learning need am I addressing? A gap in knowledge or skill you've identified in your practice. Not "I need to do CPD" — "I need to update my knowledge on the new oral anticoagulants because I'm counselling more patients on these than I was three years ago".
- What activity am I going to do? A specific activity (not "I'll read more about it"). Course X, audit Y, workshop Z.
- How will I know it worked? A way to measure or recognise that the gap has been addressed. Sometimes informal ("I'll feel more confident counselling on adherence"), sometimes concrete ("I'll re-audit my adherence-counselling outcomes in 6 months").
A learning plan written before activities matters because the Plan phase forces you to choose CPD activities deliberately rather than just doing whatever conference happens to be in town. The Board wants to see CPD as intentional, not incidental.
Do
The activity itself. This is the bit that's easy — attend the workshop, run the audit, work through the case-based module.
Two things to record while you're doing:
- Evidence of completion — certificate, attendance record, audit template, course confirmation.
- Time — how long it actually took, not what the course brochure said.
Both go into the activity record. The Board doesn't audit how engaged you were during the activity; they audit that the activity happened.
Reflect
After the activity, you write a short reflection covering:
- What did I learn? Specific takeaways, not general affirmations.
- How does this change my practice? Concrete behaviour changes, even small ones. "I'll add a check on warfarin interactions to my counselling script when dispensing new amiodarone."
- Was the original learning need addressed? Honest answer — sometimes the activity didn't deliver what you hoped, and that's worth noting.
Reflection isn't optional under the Board's standard. An activity with no reflection won't fully count at audit. The reflection doesn't need to be long — three or four sentences is plenty. It does need to demonstrate that you've thought about translation to practice.
What a complete cycle looks like
Plan (written before): "I've noticed I struggle to counsel patients on the difference between apixaban and rivaroxaban dosing for atrial fibrillation. I'll complete the PSA's oral-anticoagulants course (6 hours), and I'll know it's worked when I can answer counselling questions on these without checking the SmPC every time."
Do: PSA Oral Anticoagulants course completed 12 May 2026, 6 hours, certificate attached.
Reflect (written after): "The course covered the dosing tables clearly and included case studies on drug-drug interactions I hadn't appreciated (especially with verapamil and apixaban). I'll add a verapamil-interaction check to my anticoagulant counselling. Original learning need addressed — I feel confident on dosing now and have a clearer mental model of how the two agents differ."
That's the complete cycle. Three short paragraphs. The whole audit defense fits on one screen.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the Plan phase. "I did 40 hours of CPD" without learning plans linking activities to needs is the most common audit weakness.
- Reflections that just describe the activity. "I attended a workshop on dispensing errors." That's not a reflection — that's a calendar entry. The reflection needs to address what changed.
- No follow-up on Plan goals. If your plan said "I'll re-audit in 6 months", don't forget to do it. PracticaCPD lets you schedule a follow-up reminder on any plan.
How PracticaCPD structures the cycle
The activity form has explicit fields for Plan (learning need), Do (activity details and evidence), and Reflect (post-activity reflection). The reflection prompt appears after you mark an activity complete, so you write it while the learning is fresh. The dashboard lists activities with incomplete reflections so you can finish them before audit time.