How CPD audit selection works, and what happens next

Selection

The audit guidelines say a representative percentage of each profession is selected after each 12 or 24-month cycle, normally at random, and that a board may audit an individual or target a group at any time. The audit FAQ says only a percentage of the eligible register is asked, and that selection can happen at any time. Registrants are told the audit period at least 12 months before the audit.

Eligibility for the routine audit needs a full period on the register. Someone who joined part way through is not eligible until the end of the next period, unless the audit is targeted.

After you are selected

1. A notice asks you to submit your record, normally within 30 days.
2. You submit through the registrant portal: the activities, your evaluation and reflection for each, your review of learning needs and your plan, with a declaration.
3. If something is missing you are contacted once to resubmit.
4. Members of CORU's executive with CPD expertise review the record against its required parts.
5. You are told whether you are compliant. There is no qualitative feedback.

Non-compliance, per the guidelines, follows from not engaging after selection, not submitting without an approved deferral, or fitness to practise concerns raised by the record; the board then decides whether the code of conduct was breached.

Getting ready before a notice arrives

The practical risk in an audit is time, not the rule. Thirty days is enough to copy a finished record into the portal and not enough to reconstruct two years of reflections from memory. A record kept as you go turns an audit notice into an afternoon of copying.

• Log each activity within a week, with all four reflective fields, while the detail is still fresh.
• Check the credits in each 12-month block of your audit period at least every few months, and plan to close any gap early.
• Write the review of learning needs and the plan for the next 12 months once a year, and date it.
• Keep your supporting evidence together and note where each item is, but do not plan to send it.
• Keep your contact details current with the regulator, because the notice comes by email.

The guidelines also say that information in a record which raises a fitness to practise concern can lead to non-compliance, so keep the record factual, keep people out of it, and describe your own learning.

Worked example

Dietitians have an audit period of 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2026, with the audit from 1 November 2026. The period is two blocks: 1 November 2024 to 31 October 2025, and 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026. A dietitian registered on 1 March 2025 is not eligible for this routine audit, because the period began before that date.

A dietitian who was registered throughout and receives a notice on 1 November 2026 would have until about 1 December 2026 to submit. With the four parts already written in the log, that is a matter of copying them into the portal.

Common mistakes

• Assuming you will not be selected. Selection is random and can be targeted.
• Ignoring the notice. Not engaging is one of the listed routes to non-compliance.
• Submitting a record with no plan or no review of learning needs.
• Sending certificates and originals instead of the record.
• Including a service user's details in the record.

Keep your own CPD log

Reflectora logs each activity with its credits and the four reflective fields, counts your credits in every 12-month period, shows the date you would fall under 30 if you logged nothing new, and prints an audit pack in your own layout. Everything stays in this browser.

Sources

Last reviewed 28 September 2026 against:

• Continuing Professional Development Audit: Guidelines for Registrants, CORU, document undated, read 28 September 2026. Used for: audit periods of 12 or 24 months, 30 credits in every 12-month period linked to the registration renewal date, what a submitted record contains, no service user or colleague identifiers, supporting documents kept but not submitted, and the two outcomes
• CPD Audit and Audit Deferral FAQs, CORU, page undated, read 28 September 2026. Used for: selection of a percentage of the eligible register, 30 days to submit, deferral grounds and timing, and the eligibility of people who joined mid-period
• CPD Audit, CORU, page undated; audit schedule table as shown on the read date, read 28 September 2026. Used for: the minimum of 30 credits in every 12-month period, the four parts of a record, random selection through the registrant portal, and the audit period and audit date for each profession

This guide is our own summary of the published documents, not legal advice and not a finding about your application; the regulator's assessors decide. If it disagrees with the current documents, the documents win. Reflectora is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to CORU, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, any registration board or any professional body.