GMC Courses: Online Courses for a GMC Investigation, Probity Concerns and CPD

GMC courses are searched for in two situations: the GMC has opened an investigation into a concern about your practice, your honesty or a boundary with a patient or a colleague, and you need to show its decision makers what you have done about it; or you are planning CPD for appraisal and revalidation and want learning on Good medical practice with a certificate and a reflection you can take to your appraiser. This guide sets out, from the GMC's own pages read on 28 October 2026, how a GMC investigation runs and where a course fits, the paragraphs of Good medical practice a probity or conduct concern is measured against, what the GMC's CPD guidance for revalidation asks for, which of our courses fits each kind of concern, and what they cost. Each course is £79 (£50 with Bulk Buy 10) for 2 CPD hours, online and self-paced, with a dated certificate, and Probity & Ethics is CPD certified by The CPD Certification Service.

How a GMC investigation runs, and where a course fits

The GMC's guide for doctors, "How we investigate concerns", describes its role as acting "only where a doctor's ability to practise safely, or public confidence in doctors, may be at risk". It receives several thousand concerns a year and says it closes approximately 80 per cent of them without investigating, because they do not meet its thresholds or are not matters it can investigate. If someone tells you they are going to raise a concern and you hear nothing from the GMC, its page says you can assume that any concern received was closed. In a small number of closed cases the GMC shares the concern with you and your responsible officer and asks you to consider it at appraisal.

The GMC opens an investigation "if we believe the concern (if found proven) means we would need to restrict your practice". Its list of what that can include is misconduct, poor performance, a criminal conviction or caution, physical or mental ill-health that may impact your ability to practise, a determination by another regulatory body, and insufficient knowledge of English. Opening an investigation, it says, "doesn't mean we've reached any kind of decision"; a large share of investigations end with no action, and only the most serious concerns end in suspension or erasure.

What the GMC asks of you at the start is set out in the same guide: give any comments you have on the concern (getting key information early "can help us close our investigations more quickly"), send your employment details so it discloses to the right organisations, contact your medical defence organisation straight away, and think about support. It adds that Good medical practice obliges you to engage with the GMC, and that it is in your interests to do so. On its side, the GMC writes to your employers for information, considers whether your practice should be restricted or suspended at once (in which case it refers you to the MPTS for an interim orders tribunal), and refers convictions, cautions and other regulators' decisions straight to a medical practitioners tribunal, except for less serious convictions.

The GMC tries to conclude investigations within six months of receiving the concern, and lists what lengthens them: medical records, witness statements (about two months), expert reports (two months), a health assessment (three months), an English language assessment (three months) and a performance assessment (six months). When the information is in, two senior decision makers, one medical and one non-medical, decide whether to conclude the case with no further action, issue a warning, agree undertakings with you, or refer your case to the MPTS, and write to you with the decision and reasons. The GMC says it will, where it can, offer you a meeting before the case goes to those decision makers.

That decision is the point at which a course matters. The decision makers are weighing whether your practice needs restricting now, and evidence that you have understood the concern and acted on it, with dated certificates and a reflection, goes to that question. If undertakings are agreed or a tribunal imposes conditions, the GMC monitors compliance through your responsible officer and anyone involved in the restrictions, and may ask for further assessments before it changes or removes them. Our guides to what happens after a GMC referral and preparing for a fitness to practise hearing cover the later stages in more detail.

The standards a probity or conduct concern is measured against

Good medical practice (in force since 30 January 2024) is the standard the GMC applies. Its Domain 4, "Trust and professionalism", opens with the sentence a probity concern turns on: "Patients must be able to trust medical professionals with their lives and health, and medical professionals must be able to trust each other." Good medical professionals, it says, "are honest and trustworthy, act with integrity, maintain professional boundaries and do not let their personal interests affect their professional judgements or actions". The paragraphs that a concern is measured against, with the course that answers each:

Our guides to a GMC dishonesty investigation and Good medical practice explain the standards with the conduct that breaches them.

Which GMC course for which concern

Start from the concern as the GMC has described it in its letter, or as your responsible officer has put it, and take the course on that subject. Then add the short modules that are about the response itself.

• Probity or honesty (a false record, a claim, a CV, a timesheet, a locum booking, a conviction or caution not declared): Probity for Healthcare Professionals, with Financial Integrity for Healthcare Professionals where money is involved. Good medical practice paragraph 99 requires you to tell the GMC without delay about a caution, a charge, a conviction, criticism by an official inquiry or another regulator's finding, so a concern about non-disclosure is itself a probity concern.
• Conduct or professionalism (behaviour at work, attitude, a complaint about manner, a dispute with a colleague): Professionalism and Professional Standards for Doctors, with Professionalism and Boundaries in Use of Social Media where the concern is online.
• A boundary with a patient or a colleague (a relationship, a dual relationship, contact outside work, a gift): Professional Boundaries for Clinicians or Ethical Boundaries with Patients and Colleagues.
• Ethics (consent, capacity, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, treating family): Ethics and Ethical Standards for Doctors or the Medical Ethics Course (2.5 CPD hours).
• Records (late, missing, altered or inaccurate notes): Professionalism in Documentation for Healthcare Professionals.
• Prescribing (for yourself or family, controlled drugs, a prescription outside your competence): Prescribing Guidance and Standards for Healthcare Professionals.
• Consent, privacy or a chaperone: Privacy, Consent and Chaperone in Healthcare Practice.
• Candour (not being open after something went wrong): Duty of Candour in Healthcare Practice.
• Performance or patient safety: Ensuring Clinical Competence and Patient Safety; where the GMC has ordered a performance assessment, the course sits beside it, not in place of it.
• For the response itself: Module on Insight, Module on Reflection and Module on Remediation (£49 each, 1.5 CPD hours), with How to Deal with a Complaint or Investigation; and, where the decision makers or a tribunal have asked what will stop it happening again, How to Ensure a Similar Mistake or Misconduct Will Not Be Repeated.

If you are not sure, our chooser page Which course do I need? asks three questions and names the course.

GMC CPD for revalidation: what the guidance asks for

The GMC's guidance on supporting information for revalidation gives the purpose of CPD in five lines: to help you maintain competence in all the work you do; to enhance the quality of your professional work across your whole practice; to keep up to date with guidelines and developments; to encourage specific improvements in practice; and to help you anticipate and respond to the needs of patients, the service and changes in society's expectations. Its requirements are four: you must carry out CPD activities every year, based on your day-to-day work and what you will need for your scope of practice; your CPD must cover the whole of your practice and be tailored to your needs; your learning needs and plans go into your personal development plan; and "you must reflect on what you have learned from CPD activity and how this has helped to maintain or improve the quality of your practice".

The same page says: "We do not mandate the number of CPD points you should collect for revalidation because your CPD activities need to be tailored to your scope of practice and needs." It asks doctors to think broadly about the activities they do, to focus at appraisal on the ones they found most valuable, and to consider CPD that keeps pace with social, legal and technological change and builds equality, diversity and inclusion knowledge, including an awareness of how your own culture and beliefs influence your interactions and decisions. A search for GMC approved or accredited courses therefore finds no list, because the GMC keeps none. An online course on Good medical practice, with a dated certificate and a short written reflection on what you changed in your practice, is CPD of the kind the guidance describes, and the reflection is the same document the GMC's decision makers read if a concern is ever raised.

Our GMC courses and the Bulk Buy offer

Two courses are written for doctors, to Good medical practice; the topic courses below cover the subject of a particular concern. Every course is online, self-paced, with a dated certificate that records the course title, the hours and the date.

Courses that work alongside them

The Bulk Buy offer is any 3 courses for £200, 5 for £300 or 10 for £500, so a doctor answering a concern can take the subject course with Fitness to Practise and How to Deal with a Complaint or Investigation in one order, and a practice or department can cover its CPD on Good medical practice in one order. The three short modules, Insight, Reflection and Remediation, are £49 each for 1.5 CPD hours and sit outside the packages. Not sure where to start? Book a free 15-minute call with Dr Shehzad Iqbal.

Related guides: what happens after a GMC referral, GMC revalidation explained, a GMC dishonesty investigation, preparing for a fitness to practise hearing and professional boundaries course for doctors.

Frequently asked questions