Strategy for continuing education and professional development for hospital doctors and dentists, SCOPME’s third report, helps us to understand the essential elements that contribute to physician motivation for lifelong learning and its relationship with practice. It is a milestone document, which will influence our way of thinking about continuing professional development (CPD) and facilitate the establishment of new directions for national programmes of CPD around the world. Three programmes of work undertaken by SCOPME’s steering group form the basis of the report: 1. An examination of the current expenditure on CME and CPD was undertaken and reported to the Secretary of State in 1997. The results confirm the extreme variation that exists in the ways that expenditure for CPD/CME is recorded; the availability of funds; and the ways that the roles and responsibilities for the funding of CME and CPD are assumed. 2. A workshop was held in December 1997, entitled CME and CPD for hospital doctors: expectations and responsibilities. Its objective was to resolve the perceived conflicts between the provision of medical and dental services and the needs of professionals to enhance their personal career objectives, while at the same time enhancing the quality of care for their patients. The workshop participants recommended some major directional changes that needed to be in place for the widespread acceptance of CME and CPD: CPD they recommended, as a process encompassing CME, should be the responsibility of the individual practitioner. It should be organized and funded locally at the NHS trust level. While the Royal Colleges and other national organizations have an important contribution to make in setting standards for the content and process, they are also well positioned to spearhead the needed cultural change in how practitioner’s view lifelong learning. One important recommendation of the workshop, that practitioners’ motivation to promote their personal career goals should be viewed as a catalyst for enhancement of quality of care, is consistent with the findings in learning organizations in industry. 1 Essentially, consideration must be given to ways in which independent learning and collective knowledge building may be enhanced within daily practice. This argument is supported by the findings of the SCOPME steering group’s third programme of work, which is described below. 3. A study was undertaken by Soundings Research under the auspices of SCOPME’s steering group to determine the ways in which career grade doctors and dentists in three NHS trusts in England choose, carry out and evaluate CPD and CME activities. The findings, published in a report, Giving credit where credit is due, will form the centrepiece of this review since they provide insight into some important changes in how we view CPD, CME and workplace learning and their relationship to the provision of quality care to patients.