How a GDC Professionalism Course Helps in a Fitness to Practise Case

Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, MBBS, MRCS, MRCGP, Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics · Updated 7 November 2026

Which GDC fitness to practise cases call for a professionalism course?

The GDC investigates serious concerns about practice, health or behaviour. A professionalism course answers the behaviour side:

• conduct towards a team member or a colleague, including criticism of them in front of patients;
• posts or messages on social media about patients or colleagues;
• a boundary with a patient or a colleague that was not kept;
• a late or incomplete reply to the GDC about the concern;
• conduct outside work, such as criminal proceedings, that the GDC says affects confidence in you.

What GDC Principle 9 asks of your behaviour

Professionalism at the GDC sits in Principle 9 of the Standards for the Dental Team: “Make sure your personal behaviour maintains patients’ confidence in you and the dental profession”. Its four standards are what a conduct allegation is read against:

1. 9.1: conduct at work and in your personal life that justifies patients’ trust, including respect for colleagues (9.1.1), raising concerns about a colleague through proper channels, not in front of patients (9.1.2), what you post online (9.1.3), and boundaries with patients (9.1.4).
2. 9.2: protect patients and colleagues from risks posed by your health, conduct or performance.
3. 9.3: tell the GDC about criminal proceedings or a regulatory finding “anywhere in the world”.
4. 9.4: co-operate with any inquiry, and respond fully to a GDC letter within its deadline (9.4.1).

How a professionalism course helps at each stage

The GDC’s process runs through an initial assessment, an investigation and the case examiners stage; the Interim Orders Committee can act at any point where there may be a serious or immediate risk.

• Investigation. The GDC may ask you for more details and says a prompt response helps. Starting the course now dates the certificate well before any decision.
• Case examiners. Around a third of cases reach this stage, the GDC says, with 28 days as the standard time to comment. A clinical and a lay case examiner can close the case, give advice, issue a warning, agree undertakings or refer it to a practice committee.
• Practice committee. Hearings are run by the Dental Professionals Hearings Service. The committee asks whether the concern is “easily remediable” and “whether it has been remedied” (paragraph 232 of its guidance).

What a hearing involves, and how to prepare, is in our guide to preparing for a fitness to practise hearing.

What the GDC practice committee guidance says about insight

The guidance for the practice committees, in effect from 6 January 2026, calls insight “highly relevant” to the risk of repetition (paragraph 234). One example it gives is “reflecting on the magnitude and consequences of their conduct for others” (paragraph 236). It asks for evidence, not “unsupported wishful thinking” (paragraph 238), and, for a course, looks at whether it had “practical elements, assessment, or reflection” (paragraph 247).

In a conduct case, note too that insight is “distinguishable from willingness to offer an apology” (paragraph 235), and that in public interest cases remedial efforts “may be of far less significance” than in cases of clinical error (paragraph 249). A course supports your account; it does not replace it.

What the professionalism course covers

Five sections and 24 lessons: what professionalism means and what the regulators say about it; integrity, accountability, teamwork, boundaries with patients and colleagues, and reflective practice; pressures such as fatigue and social media; breaches and remediation; and a final assessment.

When a different course fits better

If the concern began as a dispute inside the practice team, Ensuring Teamwork and Collaboration for Healthcare Professionals answers GDC Principle 6, on working with colleagues. If a finding has been made and you need to show you can be trusted again, take Rebuilding Trust of Patients, Colleagues, Public, and Healthcare Regulator. More in our professionalism course guide.

Professionalism as verifiable CPD for the dental team

The same certificate counts towards your enhanced CPD: 100 hours over five years for dentists, 75 for dental therapists, hygienists, orthodontic therapists and clinical dental technicians, and 50 for dental nurses and dental technicians. Link it to development outcome D in your personal development plan, or to outcome B if the concern was about teamwork.

Our professionalism course, for a GDC case and for CPD

Courses that sit beside it

Bulk Buy covers the £79 courses: 3 for £200, 5 for £300, 10 for £500. Not sure what to take? Book a free 15-minute call or see which course do I need.

This guide is part of our Professional Misconduct hub, which brings together every Probity & Ethics guide and course on the subject.

The CPD courses linked from this guide, Professionalism for Healthcare Professionals, Ensuring Teamwork and Collaboration for Healthcare Professionals, Rebuilding Trust of Patients, Colleagues, Public, and Healthcare Regulator and Module on Insight, are by Probity & Ethics, written by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, CPD certified and accredited by The CPD Certification Service (provider no. 13197) and offered since 2020.

Questions and answers