DPC and periodic certification: what changes for physiotherapists
Your DPC is not going away: it becomes one building block of periodic certification. Here, without the jargon, is how the two fit together and what it actually changes for your courses.
🔄 Does certification replace the DPC?
No. Periodic certification does not replace continuing professional development: it absorbs it into a broader process. The DPC is one of its components, notably its first two strands.
The DPC remains a regulatory obligation on a three-yearlybasis, centred on maintaining competence and improving practice. Certification pursues a broader aim over a 6-year cycle: safeguarding the quality of your practice throughout your career, including your relationship with patients and your own health.
In time, for professions governed by a regulatory body (physiotherapists among them), the three-yearly DPC obligation is intended to be replaced by the periodic certification cycle. In plain terms: in future, doing your DPC will mean contributing to your certification.
📊 What really changes
DPC and periodic certification: the comparison
Two rhythms, two scopes, but one nested inside the other.
| Critère | DPC | Periodic certification |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Three-yearly obligation (3 years) | 6-year cycle |
| Scope | Maintaining competence + evaluating / improving practice | 4 strands (including the 2 of the DPC) |
| Patient relationship & practitioner health | Not covered as such | Yes (strands 3 and 4) |
| How they fit together | One component of certification | Overall framework for a whole career |
Source: national FAQ « Certification périodique », French Ministry of Health (DGOS), 2026.
🧭 Where does the DPC sit within the 4 strands?
Certification rests on 4 strands. The DPC feeds first into the first two: that is where your DPC activities naturally « land ».
Updating knowledge and skills
The heart of « training » DPC. Your DPC training activities count here.
DPC ✓Strengthening the quality of practice
Practice evaluation, risk management: the other side of the DPC.
DPC ✓Relationship with patients
New compared with the DPC: communication, ethics, informing the patient.
Your health
New as well: prevention and preservation of the practitioner’s health.
A reminder: across the cycle you need at least 2 activities per strand (so 8 as a minimum). The DPC therefore helps you cover strands 1 and 2, but not, on its own, strands 3 and 4.
🎓 DPC and non-DPC courses: both count
Certification is not limited to DPC-labelled activities alone. Courses without the DPC label can also be taken into account, provided they:
- contribute to maintaining or updating your skills;
- fall within one of the 4 mandatory strands;
- appear in your profession’s reference framework (or meet its criteria) and can be evidenced.
Some courses must nonetheless be labelled or recognised by the relevant CNP , the national professional council. The aim of the scheme: to give credit to the full range of courses you actually take throughout your career.
✅ Your activities since 2023 already count
Good news: activities completed since 1st January 2023 (DPC, in-house training, professional commitments) can be declared and taken into account, provided they were completed during the cycle, comply with the reference framework and can be evidenced. Keep your certificates of completion until the online service opens.
Your physiotherapy courses, a step towards your certification
Continuing education, whether DPC or not, feeds strand 1, provided it meets the criteria of your reference framework and can be evidenced. At Physio Learning, every course gives you a certificate of completion to keep for your record.
Further reading
→ The full guide: periodic certification for physiotherapists (4 strands, 8 activities, 6 years) → Ma Certif’ Pro Santé: the declaration service explainedBehind this article
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Physiotherapist · co-founder of Physio Learning
Marked for life by his first four-hour lecture without a single image, he took a master’s in instructional design so that it would never happen to anyone again. He hunts down publication bias and unreadable slides with the same intransigence.
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