Personal development plan (PDP)
Published: 8 October 2025
This guide will help you understand what a personal/professional development plan (PDP) is, when it can be helpful to develop one for yourself, and how to create it, including self-reflection, goal planning, actions to achieve goals and reviewing and evaluating your progress.
Member only content
Related articles
Reflective account
This was published when the organisation was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. What should my reflective account include? How to reflect Demonstrating the standards – non patient facing role Demonstrating the standards – patient facing role Reflective account template Reflective account examples Reflective account webinars Member only content Log in to read more A reflective account is one of the records required for revalidation. It's a summary of your practice over the past year. It should include specific examples of how you meet one or more of the General Pharmaceutical Council's (GPhC’s) standards for pharmacy professionals and how your service users benefited as a result. The standards you need to reflect on are: Standard 1: Pharmacy professionals must provide person-centred care. Standard 2: Pharmacy professionals must work in partnership with others. Standard 5: Pharmacy professionals must use their professional judgement. Use this guide to help you complete your reflective account, with advice on how to write one. We have videos, webinars, templates and examples to help you. What should my reflective account include? To meet the GPhC feedback criteria, your reflective account record should include: A brief summary of your practice history for the last year. What your area of work is (the setting of your practice, who you work with and your main roles). Who the typical users of your service(s) are. How you met one or more of the GPhC standards over the last 12 months; the GPhC will provide details of which standards you can reflect on for each year. See the section below on how to reflect. Examples from your practice demonstrating how you meet the chosen GPhC standards. See sections on demonstrating the standards in a patient-facing and non-patient-facing role. How users of the service benefitted as a result with evidence and/or their feedback. How to reflect Reflection can greatly improve your skills as a pharmacy professional. Reflecting on things that went wrong, as well as things that went well, is to be encouraged in your practice. Your record should include an example(s) from the previous 12 months. This is best kept concise and to the point. Focus on the quality, as there is no specified word count; they don’t need to be essays. Refection is personal, and there are different ways you can reflect (see examples below). It’s important to reflect on both positive and negative experiences so you can develop as a professional. There are several stages to reflection: Describe what, where and who Think about the subject/situation in detail to help clarify events, actions, feelings, thoughts or beliefs. It is an opportunity to recapture an event or an example of an area of practice for the purposes which serves as a springboard for you to explore your practice, i.e.: What happened exactly and in what order? Where were you at the time and who else was involved? What part did you have to play? What was the final outcome? Describe why things happened as they did Consider intended and unintended consequences of the situation/area of practice – helping with cause and effect – the ‘why’ aspect of practice. Could you have done anything differently? In hindsight: How would you have managed the situation/area of practice differently? Is there anything you could have tried that may have improved the situation? Was there anything you did that was particularly important in the situation? It’s easy to remember the things that you didn’t do but also try to describe what you did well. What will you do differently in the future – how will this change your practice? This is probably the most important stage in reflecting. List how you’ll learn and improve your practice for the benefit of your service users. Think about what you would do differently in that specific situation. Think about any transferable knowledge or skills that you can use in similar situations. Demonstrating the standards – patient-facing role There are many ways in which you can demonstrate the standards in your daily work. Some to consider are below. Remember to state how meeting the standard has benefited your service users. 1. Provide person-centred care Audits. Keeping up to date with the most current and relevant information (e.g., with courses, tools or guidelines). Obtaining consent in written form to provide services (e.g., vaccination or private services). Performing medication reviews and consultations to involve, support and enable people to make decisions about their health and care. Improving your consultation skills with techniques such as asking open questions about the person’s ideas, concerns and expectations. Assessing the health literacy of the person and providing all relevant information in a way they can understand, so they can make informed decisions (e.g., providing written and verbal information). Providing training to teams on safeguarding, confidentiality, consent, raising concerns and cultural competence. Not imposing your moral beliefs on a person and maintaining person-centred care by signposting appropriately (e.g., supplying the morning-after pill). Providing all the necessary information to support an individual to decide whether to receive the flu/COVID vaccine. 2. Work in partnership with others Working with the multidisciplinary team involved in the person’s care. Responding to queries from other healthcare professionals. Mentoring a foundation pharmacist or prescriber. Building good working relationships with surgeries (e.g., letting them know of medicine shortages and alternatives to ensure continuity of care). Contacting your local safeguarding team to raise concerns and getting involved in safeguarding meetings with the multidisciplinary team. Documenting records (e.g., findings, interventions, referrals, reviews, consultations, prescribing, administering, service delivery, decisions and advice) in patient medication and prescribing records that are detailed but concise, legible, contemporaneous and accurate, so that other team members have up-to-date information about the patients' health. Speaking to colleagues in other settings (e.g., hospital, community or GP practice to provide transfer of care, such as setting up an MCA post discharge). Performing reviews and involving the person receiving care. 3. Communicate effectively Obtaining all the information you need to complete a query by phoning the person and clarifying the information you have. Providing information to people in different formats (e.g., verbal and written). Accessing translators and accessibility devices (e.g., hearing loops). Documenting records (e.g., findings, interventions, referrals, reviews, consultations, prescribing, administering, service delivery, decisions and advice) in patient medication records (PMR) and prescribing records that are detailed but concise, legible and accurate. Communicating new ways of working to people using your services (e.g., deliveries and other pharmacy services). Working with other healthcare professionals. Providing feedback to colleagues after completing an error report. Counselling a patient on a new medication. Effective delegation of tasks – providing relevant information and checking they understand what is required of them Providing appropriate advice about the safe use of a medicine to a person – listening appropriately, asking relevant questions and tailoring your message according to the needs of the patient. Assessing health literacy of a person and providing all relevant information in a way they can understand, so they can make informed decisions (e.g., providing written and verbal information). Improving your consultation skills with new techniques such as asking open questions and about the person’s ideas, concerns and expectations. Interpreting national guidance and explaining this to the pharmacy team. Having effective conversations with colleagues or other healthcare professionals. Communicating new ways of working to people using your services (e.g., deliveries and other pharmacy services). Delivering training to the team. Effective delegation of tasks within the pharmacy teams. Communicating guidance and SOPs. 4. Maintain, develop and use their professional knowledge and skills Keeping up to date by reflecting regularly on your practice. Keeping up to date by identifying and completing relevant CPD. Accessing and using reliable sources of information. Identifying gaps by using professional frameworks and reviewing professional standards. Reading articles to keep knowledge current and relevant. Upskilling to work in new settings. Creating P formularies when prescribing. Regularly reviewing your scope of practice. Setting SMART objectives regularly and achieving them. Audits. Recording your learning activities. Explaining your remit and referring to other colleagues when asked to prescribe outside of your competence. Referring to senior colleagues, prescribers or other services appropriately. 5. Use professional judgement Reviewing near miss error reports or error reports and suggesting outcomes for improvements. Deciding if a medicine should be supplied or whether a referral would be safer. Dealing with team members who are underperforming in their role. Dealing with whistleblowing concerns. Accessing the most reliable and up-to-date information to provide the most appropriate care to people. Taking time off work when needed to avoid burnout. Reflecting on your scope of practice and identifying any learning needs. Considering and appropriately managing any personal or organisational goals, incentives or targets, and making sure the care reflects the needs of the person (e.g., communicating to the patient reasons for switching). Using a patient-centred approach for all decision making. Speaking or referring to other healthcare professionals involved in the person’s care, where appropriate. 6. Behave in a professional manner Reading articles to keep knowledge current and relevant. Upskilling to work in new settings. Appropriately referencing any useful information for training. Managing conflict resolution within your team to avoid isolating colleagues. Supporting your team in times of stress (e.g., staffing shortages). Declare and manage conflicts of interests. 7. Respect and maintain the person’s confidentiality and privacy Keeping staff records responsibly and securely (e.g., computer backups, password protected and limit access), following GDPR. Provide training to teams. Creating the right culture in the workplace. Creating and following policies on raising concerns, safeguarding, confidentiality and consent. 8. Speak up when they have concerns or when things go wrong Encouraging learning and improvement and providing protected learning time for the team. Regularly reviewing performance of staff and challenge poor practice and behaviours. Creating a raising concerns policy for all staff to read and follow. Raising a concern about malpractice, wrongdoing or safety affecting patients, colleagues, employers or the wider public, to your employer or, where appropriate, a regulator or the police. Reflecting on feedback and when things go wrong and taking necessary actions to prevent the same thing happening again. 9. Demonstrate leadership Training colleagues. Conducting reviews with staff. Supporting other members of the team with their development, e.g., ensuring PDPs are set with clear objectives. Supporting team members with any difficult or challenging working environments. Developing a training programme for team members to support with their developmental needs. Performing risk assessments and taking action to minimise risk where appropriate. Delegating tasks appropriately to the team after assessing competence and risks. Demonstrating the standards – non-patient-facing role There are many ways in which you can demonstrate the standards in your daily work. Some you may like to consider are below. 1. Provide person-centred care Creating specialist groups to support decision making about people’s health, care and wellbeing – working with the right people. Writing policies and guidance (e.g., safeguarding). Providing other healthcare professionals with relevant information in a way they can understand, so they can make informed decisions and support their patients. Audits. Keeping up to date with the most current and relevant information (e.g., courses, tools, guidelines). Supporting activities that have an impact on person-centred care (e.g., developing guidance to support pharmacy teams or coaching colleagues about this). 2. Work in partnership with others Working with the multidisciplinary team involved in the person’s care. Responding to queries from other healthcare professionals. Working with NHS organisations and healthcare professionals to write policies and guides. Delivering training or presentations to colleagues. Demonstrating teamwork when delivering projects and delegating tasks. Mentoring a foundation pharmacist or prescriber. Taking part in safeguarding meetings with the multidisciplinary team. 3. Communicate effectively Presentation, completion and dissemination of reports for a finance/board meeting. Working together on a particular project to achieve common outcomes. Giving feedback to another member of your team about their performance. Producing a report based on a drug assay. Delivering a lecture or a workshop to students or trainees. Finding out how colleagues prefer to be communicated with (e.g., email, phone call, video call, face to face) to get the best outcome. Using the correct method based on urgency (e.g., phone calls for urgent queries and email for less urgent ones). Creating questionnaires or polls for participants in meetings, training sessions or presentations. Coming up with SMART objectives and shared outcomes at performance reviews. Obtaining all the information you need to complete a query by phoning the person and clarifying the information you have. Providing information in different formats (e.g., verbal and written) according to their needs. Interpreting national guidance for the pharmacy team. Having conversations with colleagues or other healthcare professionals. Delivering training to the team. Effective delegation of tasks within the pharmacy teams. Communicating guidance and SOPs. Effective delegation of tasks. Developing resources for service users (e.g., guidance or leaflets). 4. Maintain, develop and use their professional knowledge and skills Keeping up to date by reflecting regularly on your practice. Keeping up to date by doing identifying and completing relevant CPD. Accessing and using reliable sources of information. Identifying gaps by using professional frameworks and reviewing professional standards. Regularly reviewing your scope of practice. Setting SMART objectives regularly and achieving them. Audits. Recording your learning activities. Completing professional development programmes (e.g., RCPharm faculty). 5. Use professional judgement Reviewing legislation to update or create policies. Reviewing near miss error reports or error reports and suggesting outcomes for improvements. Dealing with team members who are underperforming in their role. Dealing with whistleblowing concerns. Accessing the most reliable and up-to-date information to provide the most appropriate care to people (e.g., when creating guides and policies). Taking time off work when needed to avoid burnout. Reflecting on your scope of practice and identify any learning needs. Considering and appropriately managing any personal or organisational goals, incentives or targets, and make sure the care provided reflects the needs of the person (e.g., making sure you communicate to the team about reasons for switching and achieving targets). Setting appropriate individual or organisational objectives for the year, taking into account your service user. 6. Behave in a professional manner Reading articles to keep knowledge current and relevant. Upskilling to work in new settings. Appropriately referencing any useful information for training. Managing conflict resolution within your team to avoid isolating colleagues. Supporting your team in times of stress (e.g., staffing shortages). Declare and manage conflicts of interests. 7. Respect and maintain the person’s confidentiality and privacy Keeping staff records responsibly and securely (e.g., computer backups, password protected and limit access), following GDPR. Provide training to teams. Creating the right culture in the workplace. Creating and following policies on raising concerns, safeguarding, confidentiality and consent. 8. Speak up when they have concerns or when things go wrong Encouraging learning and improvement and providing protected learning time for the team. Regularly reviewing performance of staff and challenge poor practice and behaviours. Creating a raising concerns policy for all staff to read and follow. Raising a concern about malpractice, wrongdoing or safety affecting patients, colleagues, employers or the wider public, to your employer or, where appropriate, a regulator or the police. Reflecting on feedback and when things go wrong and taking necessary actions to prevent the same thing happening again. 9. Demonstrate leadership Training colleagues. Conducting reviews with staff. Supporting other members of the team with their development, e.g., ensuring PDPs are set with clear objectives. Supporting team members with any difficult or challenging working environments. Developing a training programme for team members to support with their developmental needs. Performing risk assessments and taking action to minimise risk where appropriate. Delegating tasks appropriately to the team after assessing competence and risks. Reflective account template Practice completing a CPD record of your own by downloading our revalidation recording template below. Please note, this is a PDF template – you may need to find a suitable app to edit the template online. Reflective account template (PDF) Reflective account examples Patient-facing hospital – example of effective communication Provide a reflective account of how you met one (or more) of the GPhC’s standards for pharmacy professionals. The GPhC will tell you which standard(s) to choose from each year. I am the lead pharmacist for medicines management at the NHS trust where I work. I lead a team of clinical pharmacists providing a service to the medical wards and clinics. My service users include patients, pharmacists and pharmacy staff, medical staff, nurses and other healthcare professionals. What, where and who? A recent problem with a commonly used antibiotic helps to demonstrate how I communicate effectively (standard 3). Over the past few months, there has been an ongoing shortage of an antibiotic injection from the supplier, and we had to restrict dispensing only to cases where an alternative antibiotic was not tolerated by the patients. This was having a considerable impact upon the care of my patients. I spent a lot of time trying to organise alternatives and change therapy after the prescribing decisions had been made, and I could understand how frustrated the prescribers were getting with all this going back and forth. I decided that I needed to reduce the complications associated with this drug shortage and, consequently, reduce the impact it was having upon my patients’ therapy. I started by working closely with my medical colleagues to reiterate the shortage of the antibiotic in its IV formulation and explain how, despite the enabling policies in the hospital, the pharmacist in the dispensary needed to confirm alternative therapy with them before proceeding in dispensing. I then engaged with the consultants discuss options for appropriate alternatives, depending on age, indication and bacteriology results from the lab. Once we had decided on alternative pathways, we needed to communicate them to the wider healthcare team. I formulated a memo (in the form of a flyer) with the recommended alternatives listed in an easy-to-follow flowchart that had been agreed with the consultants, so that it would be covered by the enabling policy. Hard copies were placed on all wards via their ward pharmacists (who were fully briefed by a training session held in the pharmacy department). An announcement was made on the Trust’s intranet, and the information was also emailed to medical service leads for dissemination to the medical teams. I also held training sessions for all pharmacy staff across the acute hospital sites and attended departmental/directorate of medicine meetings to present the information. Why did it happen? Upon reflecting on this situation, I identified that nobody had highlighted to medical teams that there was a supply problem with the antibiotic. Pharmacy teams that were affected by this problem would often just inform one of the junior members of the medical team, who wasn’t the original prescriber and would happily follow the instructions from the pharmacist to choose an alternative therapy. They would not feedback to the consultant or original prescriber that there was a problem. Therefore, practice would not change. Could you have done anything differently? I think I handled this situation well and managed to find a solution that would ultimately improve the care of my patients. The medical team are now aware of the supply problem and understand that they need to select a different antibiotic. I think that it would have been useful to gather more information about the drug to ascertain if there was any information that would tell us how long it was going to be out of stock and, therefore, this might influence how permanent the change to the alternative antibiotics may have been. In turn, this could have influenced exactly how changes were communicated to the healthcare team. What will you do differently in the future? In the future, I think I would ensure that pharmacy teams take the lead on communicating supply issues with antibiotics and that they work closely with the microbiology team to identify alternatives. Prior to going to the prescribing clinicians with the problem. In fact, I will follow this approach with supply issues on any medications. I would also ensure that we respond more quickly to such problems to ensure that the best care is given to our patients in the most efficient manner. Non-patient-facing primary care – example of effective leadership Provide a reflective account of how you met one (or more) of the GPhC’s standards for pharmacy professionals. The GPhC will tell you which standard(s) to choose from each year. I am a pharmacist working in an integrated care board (ICB), which oversees the implementation of local prescribing formularies in line with my STP footprint. I am also the education and training lead for our ICB, which means I champion the development of our ten pharmacists. My service users are the pharmacists within my project team and the ten pharmacists who rely on me for their education and training opportunities. Part of my role is to ensure that the education and training budget for our team is appropriately managed. I will liaise with our team to identify their learning needs for the following 12 months and find learning opportunities that meet these needs. It was approaching the end of our financial year and I could see that several of our team had not organised any personal development opportunities. If the team did not use the allocated resource, it would be lost, and this seemed to be a waste of money and a lost opportunity for personal and professional development. I compiled a shortlist of courses that I felt would be useful to members of my team and circulated them via email. As a result of this, two members of my team managed to secure places on a formal project management course that would feed into their roles, supervising various workstreams our team was working on. One member has recently completed a project implementing a local prescribing formulary for primary and secondary care and the execution of the project, including the deliverables, have benefited from the additional training he has undergone. The project was finished on time, within budget and presented exceptionally well to our stakeholders. By contributing to the education, training and development of the team, I have demonstrated the standard ‘effective leadership’. When I noticed that we hadn’t utilised our training resource for this year, I was initially concerned that we might lose this and the impact it would have upon next year’s allocation. I was also slightly frustrated with my team for not prioritising this within their work to ensure that they continue to develop professionally and personally. However, I can understand that this would fall to the bottom of their list. As they are all so busy with their day jobs, it can often be difficult to find the time to prioritise such matters. As mentioned, it can often be difficult for team members to find the time and headspace to think about their own personal development while trying to deliver on projects they are responsible for. It is also difficult for some members of my team to see the value in attending additional training courses unless they can see a tangible benefit to their work. Both of these could have contributed to the fund not being used. Additionally, I may have struggled to focus on supporting others with their learning as it has slipped as an organisational priority, again due to external pressures and workload. Therefore, I have not been as proactive in supporting others as I should have been. I think that I could’ve been more proactive in my approach with my team and identified clear learning opportunities with them at the start of the year. I could have also paid more attention to their development as the year went on, rather than being prompted by the financial agenda. Furthermore, rather than just sending an email to the team with some suggested courses, I could have met with them individually and understood their training needs in greater detail. I could have tailored my suggestions for additional training to best suit their needs. Going forward, I will ensure that I meet earlier with my team members to discuss their identified learning and developmental goals. I will do this shortly after they have met with their line managers, for their yearly reviews. This will enable me to work with them, throughout the year, to help achieve their goals. I will also have a mid-year meeting with them to see how they are progressing and use that opportunity to support them to identify any opportunities they wish to pursue. Reflective account webinars Non-patient-facing roles An introduction to the reflective account for non-patient-facing professionals, with Susan Kilby and Gino Martini. https://youtu.be/P4s83o3d82o?si=pr7NhU8YeKAVp7li Patient-facing roles An introduction to the reflective account for patient-facing professionals, with Helen Chang. https://youtu.be/7unojQGmDt8?si=F4kDb8ArQEZUuDk0 Reflective practice webinar Hosted by Joseph Oakley, Head of Assessment and Credentialing at RCPharm and Stephen Doherty, Advanced Pharmacist Programme Lead at RCPharm and a member from our Consultant Pharmacist Task and Finish group, this webinar includes discussions of best practice and exemplar materials related to the following SLEs: Reflective accounts (RA) Clinical leadership assessment skills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orjp_xuqpus One-to-one support Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pmWe'll answer your questions, provide reliable professional advice, and point you towards the most up-to-date pharmaceutical information. Get in touch Did this learning help your CPD? Don't forget to record it in your MyCPD Revalidation e-Portfolio. Visit e-Portfolio Share your suggestions Submit an idea for learning content, events, guidance or resources Complete form