Ethics, Probity and Professionalism Coursesfor Healthcare Professionals Facing Investigations

Yes. That is the situation these courses are built for. Probity and Ethics has worked exclusively with healthcare professionals facing complaints, inquiries, investigations and fitness to practice processes since 2020.

Whether the letter has come from the GMC, NMC, GDC, GPhC, HCPC, GOC, GCC, GOsC, Social Work England and the SSSC, you can choose courses either by your regulator or by the concern that has been raised: ethics and ethical conduct, professionalism, probity and honesty, professional boundaries, clinical competence and patient safety, or insight, reflection and remediation.

One important point. Before you respond to your regulator, speak to your defence organisation or a regulatory solicitor. Our courses are education and CPD, not legal advice on your case.

Yes. Every course is written around the standards and guidance published by the UK healthcare regulators: the GMC, NMC, GDC, GPhC, HCPC, GOC, GCC, GOsC, Social Work England and the SSSC.

That means the scenarios, terminology and expected standards come from your own regulator's framework rather than from generic ethics teaching. Courses for doctors are aligned with the GMC's Good Medical Practice, courses for nurses and midwives with the NMC Code, and so on for each of the nine regulators we cover.

Choose your regulator on this page to see the courses written for your profession.

Yes. Probity and Ethics is a registered provider with The CPD Certification Service, CPD Provider No. 13197. Every course is independently assessed and certified by them, and each carries 1.5 to 2.5 CPD hours. Your CPD certificate is available to download as soon as you complete a course.

Please note that our courses are certified by The CPD Certification Service. They are not registered, accredited or endorsed by any individual healthcare regulatory body.

A course gives you two things your regulator can look at: an independently certified CPD certificate, and the reflective writing you produce from what you have learned. Both are suitable for inclusion in a remediation portfolio or a written submission.

How much weight that carries depends on the circumstances of the individual case, including which concerns have been raised, how closely the learning relates to them, and how genuine your reflection is. No course, from us or from anyone else, can guarantee a particular regulatory outcome, and any provider suggesting otherwise is worth treating with caution.

Your defence organisation or solicitor is the right person to advise on how best to present remediation evidence in your case.

Yes. Doctors whose cases are referred by the GMC to a medical practitioners tribunal at the MPTS take our courses while preparing their remediation evidence, and so do professionals facing hearings before the other UK healthcare regulators.

The MPTS runs tribunal hearings for doctors and operates separately from the GMC, which investigates. The HCPC works in a similar way, with hearings arranged and conducted by the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service. Nurses and midwives appear before NMC fitness to practice panels, and there are equivalent practice committees and panels at the GDC, GPhC, GOC, GCC, GOsC, Social Work England and the SSSC.

At the hearing stage, a tribunal or panel is weighing your insight, what remediation you have undertaken, and the risk of the same thing happening again. Certified courses in the areas your case touches on, together with your own written reflection on them, give you something concrete to put before the panel on each of those points. Timing matters here: engagement sustained over months reads very differently from a certificate obtained the week before a hearing.

Your defence organisation, solicitor or barrister should advise on what goes into your hearing bundle and how to present it. We provide the education and the certificate, not representation or advice on your case.

Fitness to practice means having the skills, knowledge, character and health to practice your profession safely and effectively. A regulator opens a fitness to practice investigation when a concern suggests that one of those may be in question.

At nearly every stage of that process, the regulator looks for evidence that you understand what went wrong, have reflected on it honestly, and have taken active steps so that it does not happen again. Our courses are built around that expectation: each one sets out the standard your regulator expects, works through how concerns of that kind arise in practice, and then asks you to reflect on your own situation against it.

Every course ends with a short assessment and a CPD certificate. We support professionals across all nine UK healthcare regulators, online and through face to face teaching.

Yes, we have courses on all three. They are the elements regulators most often ask professionals to demonstrate.

Insight is understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on patients, colleagues and public confidence in the profession. Reflection is documenting that understanding honestly, including what you would do differently. Remediation is the concrete action you have taken so that the same thing does not happen again.

Regulators assess the three together, which is why most professionals take several related courses rather than one. Any ten courses cost £500.

Yes. We receive recommendations from medical defence organisations and from law firms acting in regulatory cases, who suggest our courses to the professionals they advise. That reflects the fact that we work only in ethics, probity, professionalism, professional boundaries and fitness to practice remediation, rather than offering general CPD across many subjects.

We are deliberately careful about how we describe this. We receive recommendations, which is not the same as formal endorsement or accreditation by any defence organisation, law firm or regulator.

Doctors regulated by the GMC. Nurses and midwives regulated by the NMC. Dentists and dental care professionals regulated by the GDC. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians regulated by the GPhC. Optometrists and dispensing opticians regulated by the GOC. Chiropractors regulated by the GCC. Osteopaths regulated by the GOsC. Social workers regulated by Social Work England or the SSSC. And allied health and care professionals regulated by the HCPC, including psychologists, physiotherapists, paramedics, radiographers, occupational therapists and podiatrists.

Courses are taken both by professionals responding to a concern and by those who simply want structured CPD in ethics and professionalism, for appraisal, revalidation or their own development.

Single courses start at £49, and any ten courses cost £500. There is no subscription and no recurring charge: you pay once for the courses you choose.

Because regulators look for broad, genuine engagement rather than a single certificate, most professionals take several related courses covering the areas their case touches on.

Access is immediate on purchase. Courses are self-paced and carry 1.5 to 2.5 CPD hours each, so most people finish one in a single sitting or across a couple of evenings.

Each course ends with a short assessment, and your CPD certificate is available to download as a PDF as soon as you finish.

Yes. Courses are taken privately online, at your own pace, on any device. We never share participant details with regulators, employers or defence organisations unless you choose to do so yourself.

Many professionals complete a course before deciding whether to include it in a submission at all.

Yes. Our face to face courses on ethics, professionalism, probity and professional boundaries can be attended in person or virtually by video link, so you can join from wherever you are.

We also offer bespoke workshops for NHS trusts, private clinics, universities and defence organisations.

The courses are written to UK regulatory standards, but the underlying principles of ethics, probity and professionalism apply internationally. Professionals in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and the Gulf states may take our courses to meet local continuing education and remediation requirements.

Check your own regulator's requirements first, as recognition of overseas CPD varies between jurisdictions.