The GDC has changed its system, and you can no longer go back and edit a previous CPD year once its submission window has closed, so ensure you complete your CPD in time and record it on the GDC website.

The 2025 to 2026 cycle year closes on 31 July 2026, and your annual CPD must be completed by 31 July 2026 and logged on your MyGDC account by 28 August 2026. 

What you need to do

As a dental nurse, you must complete a minimum of 50 hours of verifiable CPD across your five-year cycle. Alongside building up your hours, you also need to:

• keep every certificate from your CPD courses as proof of completion;
• maintain a CPD log listing all the activities you have completed;
• keep a Personal Development Plan (PDP) that sets out the CPD you intend to do and how it relates to your role.
• complete reflective learning for each activity, showing what you took from it and how it applies to your practice.

Ensure that each certificate meets the GDC's requirements. It should show your name, the provider, the date, the number of verifiable hours, the subject, the aims and objectives, and the relevant GDC development outcomes. If your certificate does not show this information, you can complete a mapping document but this is only valid if the course provider verifies the information. 

The ten-hour rule: don't get caught out.

The most common rule that confuses people is that you must complete at least 10 hours of verifiable CPD every two consecutive years. It is not enough simply to reach 50 hours by the end of your cycle if you have left a two-year gap somewhere in the middle.

We have spoken to nurses who genuinely believed they had a year covered, only to discover they had missed two years running. The consequences are serious. Failing to meet the requirements can result in removal from the register.

Our advice is simple: aim for at least 5 hours of verifiable CPD every single year. If you do that, you will always satisfy the ten hours over two years rule, but make sure you still meet the 50 hours overall.

You will need to provide proof of your completed CPD.

Completing the CPD is only half the job. If the GDC selects you, and selections can be entirely random, you must be able to provide evidence for every hour. Keep your certificates safely, ideally in one folder in date order, so you can lay your hands on them quickly. It's important to have the necessary paperwork to support your CPD claims, rather than just stating that you completed it.

We know of a nurse who was asked at random to prove her hours and could only evidence 9 hours across a two-year period, despite having completed her full 50 over the cycle. It took months of worry and a rejected appeal before she tracked down a certificate from some team training she had almost forgotten. A stressful situation that a well-kept folder would have avoided entirely.

Verify now, not on the 31st.

Set aside some time this week to review the year that is about to close. Look at which courses you have done, how many verifiable hours they add up to, and whether anything is still outstanding. And remember, with the website change, this is your window: leaving a gap and planning to rectify it later is no longer a safe bet.

Need free verifiable CPD?

If you find you are a few hours short, we can help. Dental Nurse Network has free verifiable CPD available on our academy site, so you can close any gap before the deadline. Browse our free CPD here. Join our newsletter here to learn about all the free CPD we release throughout the year.

Next time we will talk about how to map your CPD hours if you do courses that don't provide proper CPD certificates but are completely relevant to your field of practice.