A patient has complained about your manner

Rushed, dismissive, abrupt, or not listening. These are referred more often than most registrants expect, and they are what this course is most directly written for.

An explanation did not land

Consent, risk, a diagnosis or a plan, explained accurately and understood differently — and now the subject of a complaint.

A conversation with a colleague went wrong

Conflict, a handover that failed, or a concern you raised or received badly. Section 4 covers exactly this.

You are under fitness to practise investigation

A case is open with any UK healthcare regulator and you need documented CPD and written reflection to put behind your response.

You are applying for restoration

You are off a register and building the evidence of change a restoration application turns on. You do not need to be registered to take this.

Nothing has been raised

You have had feedback you did not much like, or you work somewhere pressured enough that you would rather address this now than later.

Attitude, tone and manner

Short under pressure, appearing irritated by questions, or seeming not to listen. The commonest wording in complaints is simply that nobody listened.

Explanations not understood

Risk, options and plans delivered accurately but too fast or in the wrong register, and a patient who leaves unclear about what was decided.

Difficult conversations

Bad news, a mistake, or declining to provide something requested. Handled without structure, these go wrong reliably.

Consent as a conversation

Where consent was obtained but the discussion behind it was thin, and the patient later says they were not told what they were agreeing to.

Conflict with colleagues

Disagreement handled publicly or sharply, difficulty escalating upwards, and the tone of written messages between professionals.

Misleading or inappropriate communication

Information that was wrong, overstated, or more reassuring than what was known at the time. Where something misleading was said knowingly, this stops being a communication concern and becomes a probity one.

Handover and escalation

Information not passed on, passed on incompletely, or passed on to someone who did not act. The failures with the largest safety consequences.

Why communication matters

Two lessons: the part communication plays in patient safety and quality of care, and why regulators treat it as a dimension of professionalism rather than a soft skill.

Core communication skills

Three lessons: active listening, verbal and non-verbal communication, and empathy and compassion – including how each of them fails under time pressure.

Patient-centred communication

Three lessons: clarity and transparency, managing sensitive conversations, and shared decision-making rather than informing someone of a decision already taken.

Colleagues and multidisciplinary teams

Two lessons: effective communication within a team, and handling conflict and disagreement professionally – including disagreeing upwards.

Documentation as communication

Two lessons: accurate and complete records treated as a message to the next reader, and confidentiality in what is written and where it is discussed.

What the regulators require

The communication and collaboration standards set across the UK healthcare regulators, and where their emphasis differs.

Consequences and remediation

What follows a communication failure, and the practical steps remediation involves – including how to gather evidence somebody else can verify.

Conclusion and assessment

Key takeaways, followed by a post-course assessment. Your certificate is issued on completion.

Active listening

Attending to what someone is actually saying, checking you have understood it, and letting them finish. The commonest wording in a communication complaint is simply that nobody listened.

Teach-back

Asking a patient to explain back, in their own words, what has been agreed or what will happen next. It converts an assumption about understanding into something you have actually checked, and it takes very little time.

Shared decision-making

Reaching a decision with a patient rather than for them: setting out the options and their consequences, and taking their priorities seriously. The NMC’s Code puts it as respecting the level to which people want to be involved in decisions about their own health.

Escalation

Raising a concern to someone with more authority, including where you disagree with them. The NMC’s standard 16 requires you to raise concerns immediately if you are asked to practise beyond your role, experience or training.

Handover

Passing information to whoever takes over. Communication failures between professionals can do more harm than failures with patients, because no patient is present to notice the gap.

Where communication becomes probity

The line is knowledge. Information that was wrong because it was rushed or badly pitched is a communication concern; information given in a way you knew to be misleading is a probity one — the category regulators treat most seriously.

Insight

Understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on patients, colleagues and public confidence in the profession. In a communication case it means understanding how a conversation you thought was clear could land as unclear.

Remediation

The concrete steps taken so the same thing does not happen again — and in a communication case they are specific: communication skills training, observed or recorded consultations with feedback, patient feedback gathered deliberately, and supervision.

GMC — Good medical practice, domain 2

An entire domain is named for it: Patients, partnership and communication, running from paragraph 16 to paragraph 47 of the version revised on 30 January 2024. Communicating publicly, including on social media, sits separately at paragraphs 88 to 90 in domain 4.

NMC — The Code, standard 7

Communicate clearly. It sits inside theme 2, practise effectively, alongside standard 8 on working cooperatively — and theme 1 carries the listening obligations: standard 2 requires you to listen to people and respond to their preferences and concerns.

GDC — Principle 2

Communicate effectively with patients, one of nine principles the GDC says are all equally important and not listed in order of priority. Principle 6, working with colleagues in patients’ best interests, covers the team side.

GPhC — Standard 3

Communicate effectively, one of the nine Standards for pharmacy professionals, with standard 2, work in partnership with others, alongside it. Both apply equally to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

HCPC — Standard 2

Communicate appropriately and effectively — and it is one of the six standards revised on 1 September 2024, with communication named as one of the five themes that drove the revision. If your understanding predates that date, it predates the current version.

GOC — Standards 2 and 3

Communicate effectively with patients, and obtain valid consent, among the nineteen Standards of Practice. Note the domain when you go looking: the GOC is at optical.org.

GOsC — Theme A

The Osteopathic Practice Standards give communication the first of their four themes: Communication and patient partnership. It is the only framework in this set that puts it first.

GCC — the Code of Professional Practice

In force from 1 January 2026. The GCC says the new Code requires chiropractors to communicate clearly, respectfully and responsibly with patients, colleagues and the public — and it is explicit that this covers conversations in the clinic, written information, website content, advertising and all digital and social media activity. It publishes communication guidance and toolkits alongside the Code. One trap: the principles were renumbered when the 2016 Code was replaced, so a letter quoted from the old Code may now point somewhere else. Check the current Code for the principle your own concern engages.

Social Work England — standards 1 and 3

There is no standalone communication standard. It sits inside standard 1, promoting the rights, strengths and wellbeing of people, families and communities, and standard 3, accountability for the quality of practice and the decisions made — which includes being able to explain a decision to the person it affects.

The common thread

Different numbers, one expectation: that the person understood, was listened to, and was part of the decision. No regulator’s standard is satisfied by information having been delivered. Find your own regulator’s wording and answer that, rather than writing in general terms about communication.

With patients

Clarity, empathy and shared decisions. The commonest source of complaints. Information delivered accurately but too fast, in the wrong register, or without space for questions — and a patient who leaves not understanding what was decided or why.

Difficult conversations

Bad news, mistakes and disagreement. Where communication is hardest and matters most. Breaking bad news, saying something went wrong, or telling someone they will not get what they came for. Section 3 works through structuring these rather than improvising them.

With colleagues and teams

Handovers, escalation and disagreement. Communication failures between professionals can cause more harm than failures with patients, because no patient is present to notice the gap. Handover, escalating a concern, and disagreeing with someone more senior.

In the record

Documentation as communication. A note is a message to whoever reads it next, often someone you will never meet. Section 5 treats records as communication rather than administration, which is the shift that improves them.

Your own account is the weakest evidence

Saying you now listen more carefully is unverifiable, and a decision maker knows it. Everything below exists to replace an assertion about yourself with something a third party produced.

Get watched, and get it written down

Observed or recorded consultations with structured feedback are the strongest single piece of evidence available in a communication case. A colleague or supervisor who has actually seen you work, and will put their observations in writing, is worth more than any certificate.

Gather patient feedback deliberately

Not the incidental kind that arrives by chance, but feedback sought on purpose, with the questions written down and the results kept — including the unflattering ones. Selective evidence is visible.

Change one checkable thing

Asking people to say back what has been agreed. Building in a pause for questions rather than offering one at the door. Slowing the part where risk is explained. Specific and checkable beats a resolution to communicate better, and you can say when you started.

Arrange supervision or a mentor

Someone senior who discusses cases with you and can speak to how you handle them. This carries weight partly because it is ongoing rather than a one-off event.

Do it again a few months later

A second round of observation or feedback showing the difference. This is what turns a change into a sustained one, and it is the part most people leave out because it takes time they hoped not to spend.

Then write the reflection

What the complaint showed you, what you did not see at the time, what you changed, what the feedback said afterwards, and what you are still working on. Attach it to your certificate for this course — the certificate proves the learning, the feedback proves it landed.

Both accounts are usually sincere

You remember explaining it. They remember not understanding. Neither of you is lying, which is exactly why arguing about who is right gets nowhere.

Understanding has to be checked

Not assumed from a nod. Asking someone to say back what has been agreed converts an assumption into evidence, and takes very little time.

Tone is heard before content

Brusqueness under pressure is the commonest complaint about manner, and the one people are least aware of at the time. It is rarely rudeness in any dramatic sense.

Insight here is specific

It does not mean conceding you said something you did not. It means understanding how a conversation you thought was clear could land as unclear — and changing what you now check.

Insight

Understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on patients, colleagues and
public confidence in the profession. It is the element most often described as lacking.

Reflection

Setting that understanding down honestly and in your own words, including what you would do differently
and what you have already changed. Reflection is the written record of insight.

Remediation

The concrete steps taken so the same thing does not happen again — training, supervision, changes
to how you work — together with evidence that they happened.

The written half of communication: a note is a message to whoever reads it next, and it is judged as one.

The hardest conversation there is: being open when something has gone wrong, and apologising properly.

Consent as a conversation rather than a signature, which is where most consent complaints actually begin.

The element assessed in almost every case, whatever the allegation, and the one most often described as lacking.

How to write reflection that reads as understanding rather than regret, in your own words.

Turning insight into concrete, evidenced change — which in a communication case means feedback somebody else has given you.

What fitness to practise means, how the process works, and what is being assessed at each stage.

Rebuilding trust with patients, colleagues, the public and your regulator while you remediate.