Professional development planning framework for nurses and midwives
Professional development planning (PDP) is a continuous development process.
Having a professional development plan can help:
- nurses and midwives to make the best use of their skills
- with advancing the individual plans of the nurse/midwife
- with advancing the strategic goals of the organisation
The professional development planning (PDP) framework helps you create your professional development plan (PDP).
A Professional Development Plan (PDP) is a tool that supports the nurse or midwife to identify professional goals for the benefit of themselves, their service users and their workplace. Professional development planning is a continuous development process that facilitates nurses and midwives, to use their experience and skills, to identify their professional goals and the supports required to achieve their goals, and helps advance both their individual plans and service user needs.
In January 2020, the Chief Executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE) launched Performance Achievement (PA) as a mandatory process for all staff. Performance achievement is a supportive and developmentally based process that aims to ‘support staff to give of their best, be successful in their endeavours and develop their skills and careers within the health service’ (HSE 2020). Nurses and Midwives will use the Nurses and Midwives Professional Development Planning Framework for the HSE Performance Achievement process. View our short video here to find out more.
Benefits of having a PDP
When you create a professional development plan it will:
- support you to set professional long and short-term goals
- help to focus on your accomplishments, strengths and development needs
- ensure alignment of goals to NMBI code of professional conduct and ethics and other relevant policies and guidelines
- support organisational goals and objectives
- contribute to the delivery of safe quality care and improved patient experience
- help you to show that you as a nurse or midwife are maintaining your professional competence and development
Digital PDP
The digital PDP is available on the nursing and midwifery hub on HSELand.
There, you can create and maintain an online portfolio of your professional development.
See the HSELanD nursing and midwifery hub page for details on the process of registering with HSELanD and logging into HSELanD. Look for the purple professional development planning icon in the Nursing and Midwifery Hub.
Related topics
Implementation Support Network Team Contact Details (PDF, size 352 KB, 3 pages)
Professional Development Plan Framework (PDF, size 581.1 KB, 10 pages)
Professional Development Plan Guide (PDF, size 700.3 KB, 19 pages)