Continuing Professional Development ( CPD), is becoming an increasingly important part of how healthcare professionals in South Africa maintain their skills and stay accountable to the communities they serve. For nurses and midwives, CPD is regulated by the South African Nursing Council (SANC) under the Nursing Act, 2005 and the rollout is well underway.
Where things stand
SANC’s CPD framework requires registered nurses to accumulate 15 CPD points every year, spread across five key areas: ethics and legal knowledge, clinical practice, leadership, teaching, and research. The rollout is happening in phases, starting with select institutions and gradually expanding. Private hospitals, nursing colleges, and several nursing associations are already part of this process.
Agency-placed nurses aren’t yet formally included, but SANC has indicated this is likely to change from around 2027–2028. Interestingly, some private hospitals haven’t waited for that to become official — a number have already started including agency-placed nurses in the same CPD programmes they run for their permanent staff, simply because they expect the same standard of care and competency from everyone working in their facilities, regardless of who employs them.
Why this matters now, not later
CPD isn’t just a compliance box to tick. It’s designed to help nurses stay current with new clinical knowledge, protect patients, and grow professionally over the course of a career. For agency nurses in particular, getting ahead of this now, rather than waiting for it to become mandatory, means being properly prepared when the requirement does formally extend to the agency sector.
What AHASA is doing
As the national industry body representing nursing and healthcare recruitment agencies in South Africa, AHASA has been engaging directly with SANC to help shape what a workable CPD solution could look like for our sector. This includes:
- Requesting that Nursing Temporary Employment Services (TES) be formally included, through representative body AHASA, as SANC continues to expand the CPD rollout
- Evaluating multiple CPD platforms and providers to understand what’s genuinely available and at what cost, for agencies and nurses
- Working through the practical realities of a sector where many nurses work across more than one agency, to make sure any future solution is fair and workable for everyone involved
We’ll be sharing more detailed guidance for our member agencies and their nurses in the coming weeks, once it’s been properly reviewed. In the meantime, we wanted our members and the broader healthcare community to know: CPD is coming for agency nurses and AHASA is already working to make sure the sector is ready for it.
This article was written by AHASA, an industry body for healthcare recruitment companies. For further assistance or information, contact us at info@ahasa.org or to connect with some of the leading healthcare recruitment agencies in South Africa, visit our members list. https://ahasa.org/ahasa-members-list/
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