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Professionalism and Professional Standards for Chiropractors CPD course for Chiropractors facing a GCC fitness to practise investigation, complaint or Professional Conduct Committee hearing — and for your CPD
Which of these is your situation?
- Professionalism and professional standards — an allegation or GCC investigation about your conduct as a chiropractor?
- Facing an allegation of misconduct or unprofessional behaviour from a patient, an employer or the GCC?
- Under a GCC fitness to practise investigation and asked to show insight and remediation?
- A boundary crossed with a patient or a colleague, in person or online?
- A complaint about consent, undressing or a chaperone?
- Commercial pressure, a payment plan or an advertising claim raised as a concern?
- A concern about record keeping, a retrospective amendment or patient information?
- A candour failure or social media conduct raised as a concern?
- Preparing for a Professional Conduct Committee hearing, applying for restoration, or building your CPD?
- Looking for a CPD accredited and certified professionalism course for chiropractors that a panel will recognise as remediation?
This course is written for every one of these — and for your CPD.
Help with a GCC complaint, investigation or Professional Conduct Committee hearing starts here. This course helps you address the concern — and demonstrate the remediation, with a dated certificate for your written response, your CPD record or a hearing.
Dr Shehzad IqbalFounder, course author and facilitatorMBBS, MRCS, MRCGP
Ludmila UpenieceBusiness development and supportPsychology, UEL London
In short: Professionalism and Professional Standards for Chiropractors, by Probity & Ethics, is an online professionalism CPD course for chiropractors facing an allegation or GCC investigation, a complaint or a fitness to practise concern, and for CPD. It is self-paced, 2 CPD hours, £79 (£50 with Bulk Buy 10), CPD certified and CPD accredited by The CPD Certification Service (provider no. 13197), with a certificate on completion. It is written to The Code: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for chiropractors and covers the professional standards a GCC case is measured against.
Who This Course is For
A GCC letter has just arrived
A complaint or fitness to practice investigation has started, and you need to respond. Evidence built early reads better than evidence assembled the week before a deadline.
Preparing your response
Your insurer, or your professional association, and need documented CPD and written reflection behind what you say.
Your case is going to committee
You need to show sustained change, not just good intentions.
Something has to be declared
A charge, a conviction, another regulator's investigation, or a suspension or restriction elsewhere. The Code requires you to tell the GCC promptly, and how you handle that is examined in its own right.
Building your CPD before a concern arises
You want your practice to stand up to scrutiny, with verifiable CPD in your record.
The Concerns This Course Speaks To
Professional Boundaries
Boundaries in hands-on practice with a patient or a colleague, the power imbalance the Code names explicitly, and the prohibition on pursuing improper financial, emotional or personal relationships — including sexual boundaries.
Consent, Chaperones and Undressing
Valid consent as a continuous process, explaining and recording why clothing needs to be removed, offering a gown, and when to offer a chaperone.
Commercial Pressure and Payment Plans
Keeping the clinical plan of care separate from any financial payment plan, refunds for unused care, and not pressuring a patient into long-term commitment.
Advertising and Claims
Information about your services being factual and verifiable, and not exploiting a lack of health knowledge.
Record Keeping
Records that are up to date, legible and attributable, clearly identified retrospective amendments, and secure storage — the area that often turns a defensible complaint into an indefensible one.
Duty of Candour and Social Media
Being open when something goes wrong, apologising properly, and communicating responsibly online without compromising boundaries or public confidence.
What This Gcc Remediation Course For Chiropractors Covers
Seven sections and 33 lessons, with a post-course assessment:
Overview of professionalism and the GCC's role
This section establishes what professionalism means within chiropractic practice and how the GCC's regulatory framework exists to protect patients and uphold public confidence in the profession.
Core principles
We cover the foundational duties that underpin safe and ethical chiropractic practice, with particular focus on clinical record-keeping standards, which feature consistently in GCC fitness to practise concerns.
The Code of Professional Practice
This section takes you through the GCC's Code in full, examining how its four underpinning values and ten Principles translate into expected standards of conduct in everyday clinical practice.
Professional boundaries and ethical conduct
We address where professional boundaries apply in chiropractic practice, from the therapeutic relationship with patients through to online behaviour, reflecting the GCC's growing attention to social media as a source of regulatory concern.
Breaches, consequences and remediation
This section explains what constitutes a breach of the GCC's standards and walks you through every stage of the fitness to practise process, from initial referral through to hearing outcomes and remediation expectations.
Professionalism and fitness to practise
We examine what the GCC means by insight, how to demonstrate it evidentially, and how to maintain professional conduct and personal resilience while an investigation is ongoing.
Conclusion and assessment
The final section consolidates all course learning and prepares you for the post-course assessment, on passing which you will receive a CPD certificate suitable for inclusion in your remediation portfolio.
How this helps if a GCC concern has been raised
The GCC is explicit that in a fitness to practise procedure the values, Principles, Standards, glossary and supplementary guidance will all be considered. That tells you how to write: a response against the Standard engaged — C11 for candour, E1 for boundaries, J2 for records — answers the concern; one in general terms does not.
The order matters too: insight first, then reflection as its written record, then remediation as the evidence. Remediation without insight is a stack of certificates; insight without remediation is an account.
On completion you receive a CPD certificate recording the course title, the CPD hours and the date — with your written reflection, evidence for a GCC fitness to practise response, a remediation portfolio, a clinic appraisal folder or your CPD record. See all GCC remediation courses.
Read the GCC’s own guidance: The Code of Professional Practice ↗ How we investigate concerns ↗ CPD requirements ↗
Guides for a GCC concern
Read these before you respond. Each one covers a stage of the process and names the courses for it.
Ready to start? Written for chiropractors on the GCC register. Instant access, 2 CPD hours, certificate on completion.
Buy this course — £79.00Who wrote it
Course facilitator and author, Probity & Ethics
Dr Iqbal has designed and delivered ethics, probity and professionalism remediation courses for UK healthcare professionals since 2020, working with registrants of all nine UK healthcare regulators, online and face to face. He combines clinical practice with formal postgraduate training in healthcare law and ethics.
MBBS · MRCS · MRCGP · Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics, University of Dundee
Professionalism and Professional Standards for Chiropractors is a Probity & Ethics course, written by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, CPD certified and accredited by The CPD Certification Service and offered since February 2026.
Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal. Last reviewed .
What Does the GCC Code of Professional Practice Require?
The Code (2016) was replaced by the Code of Professional Practice with effect from 1 January 2026. The old four-part structure has gone. The current Code sets out four shared values, realised through ten Principles lettered A to J, each carrying its own numbered Standards.
The GCC is explicit that in a fitness to practise procedure the values, Principles, Standards, glossary and supplementary guidance will all be considered. That has a direct consequence for how you write: cite the Standard actually engaged — C11 for candour, E1 for boundaries, J2 for records. A response written against the right Standard answers the concern. One written in general terms reads as though you have not looked.
What These GCC Terms Mean
The terms the GCC uses about a concern, and what each one means in practice.
Code of Professional Practice
The GCC's standards document, in force from 1 January 2026 — four shared values realised through ten Principles lettered A to J, each carrying its own numbered Standards.
Principles and Standards
The Principles are the ten high-level duties, A to J. The Standards are the numbered requirements under each one, and they're what a response should be written against.
Supplementary guidance
Guidance the GCC issues alongside the Code on particular Principles or Standards; the expectation is that it's followed unless there's good reason not to.
Unacceptable professional conduct
What a complaint is investigated against. The Code says an unintentional or minor breach of a Standard is unlikely to amount to it.
Fitness to practise
Being able to demonstrate you're fit to be on the GCC register: sufficient knowledge, skills and competence, professional behaviour, and good health.
Professional boundaries
The limits that keep the chiropractor–patient relationship professional rather than personal; see “The Concerns This Course Speaks To” above.
Investigating Committee
The independent committee that reviews all the information gathered about a concern and decides whether there's a case to answer.
Interim order
A restriction imposed while a concern is still being considered, up to and including suspension — used where patient safety appears at risk, not a finding against you.
Insight
Understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on patients, colleagues and public confidence in the profession. The element panels describe as lacking.
Remediation
The concrete steps taken so it doesn't happen again, with evidence they occurred; see “How This Course Helps” above.
The Standards a GCC Case Usually Turns On
Find the part your concern engages, quote it by letter and number, and answer it directly:
E1 — Professional boundaries
Recognise the power imbalance and don't abuse it; no improper financial, emotional or personal relationships, sexual boundaries included.
E3 and E4 — Undressing and chaperones
Explain the clinical need, obtain and record valid consent, offer a chaperone wherever the assessment might be considered intimate.
C10 — Payment plans
Determine and share the clinical plan of care separately from any financial payment plan; provide a clear contract including refunds for unused care.
C9 — Business and inducements
Be honest, fair and transparent in business; clinical judgement must not be prejudiced by personal, financial or commercial interest.
C5 and C6 — Advertising and health information
Information must be factual and verifiable, and must not exploit a patient's vulnerability or lack of health knowledge.
C11 — Duty of candour
Be open and honest when something goes wrong: tell the patient, offer an apology, offer a suitable remedy or support.
J2 and J3 — Records
Records kept up to date, legible and attributable, with retrospective amendments clearly identified as such, stored safely and securely.
G3 — Fees and complaints
Visible, easy to understand information on fees and how to complain, including the right to refer an unresolved complaint to the GCC.
G6 — Communicating online
Communicate responsibly on social and media-sharing platforms, maintaining professional boundaries and public confidence.
C15 and C16 — Telling the GCC, and cooperating
Promptly inform the GCC of a criminal charge or conviction, a regulatory investigation, or a practice restriction elsewhere, and cooperate fully.
What Happens After a Concern is Raised
Knowing which stage you're at tells you what your response has to do, and how long you have to build the evidence behind it:
The concern is reviewed
The GCC decides whether to open an investigation, usually within seven days.
Evidence is gathered
A formal written statement, and possibly release of relevant health records.
You are told, and you respond
This is the stage where written evidence of insight and remediation does most of its work.
An interim order, in serious cases only
A protective step where there appears to be an immediate risk to the public.
The Investigating Committee decides
An independent committee reviews the information and decides if there's a case to answer.
Referral to a formal hearing
If fitness to practise is in question, the case goes to the Professional Conduct Committee or the Health Committee.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it “fitness to practise” or “fitness to practice”?
Both spellings appear online, but “fitness to practise” (with an s) is the correct British English form the GCC and other UK regulators use, since “practise” is the verb. You'll see “fitness to practice investigation” written both ways in searches, but official GCC documents always use “practise.”
Do I have to tell the GCC about a criminal charge or another investigation?
Yes. Standards C15 and C16 require you to promptly inform the GCC of a criminal charge or conviction anywhere in the world, a regulatory investigation, or a practice restriction imposed elsewhere, and to cooperate fully.
Can I keep practising while a concern is being investigated?
In most cases, yes. An interim order restricting or suspending your practice is only used where there appears to be an immediate risk to the public — it's a protective step, not a finding against you.
Does this count towards my GCC CPD?
Usually, yes. Many concerns are investigated without any restriction on practice. In serious cases, where there appears to be an immediate risk to the public, the GCC can act to stop a chiropractor seeing patients while the concern is considered, and that can include suspending registration. Interim restrictions are used where patient safety is at risk or where unrestricted practice could seriously damage confidence in chiropractors generally — they are protective, and they are not a finding that anything has been proved against you.
Will completing this course resolve my case?
No course determines the outcome of a fitness to practise case. What it provides is the evidenced insight, reflection and remediation a committee looks for — take advice from your insurer, professional association or a specialist regulatory adviser about your own circumstances.
Why do we write “fitness to practise” and not “fitness to practice”?
Both spellings are in use for the same process. In British English practise is the verb and practice is the noun, so the UK regulators write fitness to practise, and this page follows them. The spelling with a c is the American one, and it appears in searches and in some professional bodies’ material. They mean the same thing, and nothing turns on which you use in your own response.
Can I buy more than one course?
Yes. Our Bulk Buy offer covers any 3, 5 or 10 courses and works out cheaper per course. Allegations rarely arrive alone — professionalism, boundaries, records and candour usually feature in the same letter — so a bundle is usually the better answer to a real case.
Related Courses
The ethics pair to this course: how a decision was reached, where this one covers how you conducted yourself.
The element a panel assesses in every case, whatever the allegation, and the one a response is read for.
How to write reflection that reads as understanding rather than regret.
Turning insight into concrete, evidenced change a committee can see actually happened.
What fitness to practise means, how the process works, and what is being assessed at each stage.
Start Your GCC Remediation Today, Finish at Your Own Pace
Instant access on purchase. Certificate on completion, CPD certified and accredited by The CPD Certification Service.
Buy this course — £79.00 Bulk buy — any 3, 5 or 10 courses