The RACGP 2026 CPD framework, explained

If you're an Australian GP, the RACGP CPD framework from 2023 onwards is the model you're working to. The 2026 cycle keeps the structure that landed in 2023 but tightens a few of the expectations. Here's what it actually means, in plain English.

The three categories

Every CPD activity you do falls into one of three categories.

Educational Activities (EA) — formal and self-directed learning. Conferences, journal clubs, podcast episodes you take notes on, online courses, reading clinical guidelines and applying them. The most familiar bucket.

Reviewing Performance (RP) — activities where someone else (or a structured tool) tells you something about how you practise. Direct observation, case-based discussion with a colleague, a structured peer review, a 360 with practice staff, multi-source feedback. The category most GPs find hardest to log because it requires another person.

Measuring Outcomes (MO) — clinical audit. Pulling data from your practice software and looking at how a slice of your patients are tracking against an evidence-based benchmark. Are 80% of your patients with established atrial fibrillation on appropriate anticoagulation? Are your asthma patients on inhaled corticosteroids at GINA-recommended doses? You're not just learning content — you're checking your own work.

The hour totals

In a typical year:

• Total: 50 hours of CPD.
• EA: minimum 12.5 hours.
• RP: minimum 5 hours.
• MO: minimum 5 hours.
• RP + MO combined: minimum 25 hours. This is the rule most GPs miss until November. It says you can't run 45 hours of EA and 5 hours of MO; you need to weight at least half your year toward looking at your own practice rather than absorbing new content.

Priority Learning Requirements (PLRs)

Each year you also need at least two activities that address each of three priority areas:

1. Cultural safety — Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, broader cultural competence, working with patients whose first language isn't English.
2. Addressing health inequities — social determinants, rural and remote health, access barriers.
3. Professionalism and ethics — consent, capacity, end-of-life care, deprescribing, conflict of interest, collegiality.

Two activities means two distinct activities. A single full-day conference that happens to touch on cultural safety in one session counts as one activity, not two.

CPR per triennium

You need to complete a CPR refresher at least once every three years (the current triennium being 2026–2028). It's a one-off in any given year, but the system needs to see it once across the cycle.

Where most GPs trip

Three places, repeatedly:

• RP+MO combined minimum. It's easy to over-index on EA (because EA is what you do anyway — read, listen, attend). Plan RP and MO into the first half of the year; you'll be glad in October.
• The PLR ≥ 2 rule. Easy to do one cultural-safety activity and forget the second. PracticaCPD's dashboard counts these for you and shows the gap.
• Documentation for audit. RACGP doesn't ask you to upload evidence at the time of recording, but they do randomly audit. Save the evidence as you go — a screenshot, a certificate, the audit spreadsheet — rather than scrambling at audit time. Practica's evidence-upload feature exists exactly for this.

How PracticaCPD makes this easier

The dashboard treats EA, RP, MO as first-class concepts and calculates the combined minimum, the PLR gap, and the triennial CPR status on every visit. Clinical modules issue Statements of Completion that auto-log activities across all three categories with the RACGP-prescribed hour weighting. End-of-year compliance becomes a non-event.

Where to read the authoritative version

Always check the RACGP CPD page for the current requirements. Hour totals and Priority Learning Requirements occasionally shift between cycles. This article is a plain-English summary, not the source of truth.