Told by the HCPC to Complete a Course? What Registrants Should Do Next

If the HCPC, a panel or your employer has told you to complete a course, start with the exact words you were given: the subject, the deadline and who must see the evidence. Then choose a course on that subject, complete it, keep the dated certificate, and write a reflection on what you learned and what you now do differently. This guide sets out, from the HCPC’s own pages, how an HCPC investigation and hearing run, the standards a course maps to, and the steps to take. Our courses for HCPC registrants are £79 (£50 with Bulk Buy 10) for 2 CPD hours, online and self-paced, and Probity & Ethics is CPD accredited and certified by The CPD Certification Service (provider no. 13197).

What does an HCPC investigation involve?

The HCPC sets out its process in stages.

1. Triage. The HCPC decides whether the concern is something it can deal with. If it is not, no further action is taken.
2. Initial investigation. The HCPC gathers information, which can include contacting your employer, and tests the concern against its threshold criteria for fitness to practise investigations. If the threshold is not met, it closes the case.
3. Formal allegations. If the threshold is met, the HCPC drafts formal allegations and invites you to respond in writing within 28 days. It can grant a further 28 days on request.
4. Investigating Committee. A panel of at least three, including a registrant from your profession and a lay person, meets in private and reads the papers. It decides whether there is a “real prospect of proving the facts” at a hearing: a case to answer, or no case to answer.

Serious concerns, such as serious violence, sexual offences or serious or sustained dishonesty, go straight from triage to the Investigating Committee. Your written response at the allegation stage is the first place to show insight and the steps you have taken. For the full stages see our HCPC investigation guide and HCPC fitness to practise stages.

What happens at an HCPC hearing?

If the Investigating Committee finds a case to answer, the case goes to a final hearing before a panel of the Conduct and Competence Committee (misconduct, lack of competence, a conviction or caution, or another regulator’s decision) or the Health Committee. The panel includes a chair, a registrant from your profession and a lay person, with an independent legal assessor. Hearings are held in public, though parts can be held in private to protect confidential information, and decisions are always given in public. The HCPC shares its evidence at least 42 days before the hearing, and you send your information at least 28 days before.

The panel decides whether the facts are proved, whether they amount to the grounds alleged, and whether your fitness to practise is impaired. If it finds the allegation well-founded, it can:

• take no further action, or order mediation;
• impose a caution order, for one to five years;
• impose a conditions of practice order, for no longer than three years;
• suspend your registration, for no longer than one year;
• strike you off the Register (what work is still open after that is in our guide to working in another healthcare role after being struck off).

Before a hearing, a case can also end by consent: you admit the allegations and that your fitness to practise is impaired, and a panel approves a caution, conditions or suspension of the kind it would have made at a full hearing. Conditions and suspension orders are reviewed before they expire, and the review panel looks for evidence that the conditions were met or the problems resolved. A completed course, with a reflection, is part of that evidence. See also what happens at an HCPC hearing.

Which HCPC standards does a course map to?

The HCPC’s standards of conduct, performance and ethics, in force since 1 September 2024, are the standards every registrant must meet, and the HCPC uses them to decide whether it needs to act in a fitness to practise case. There are ten:

1. Promote and protect the interests of service users and carers: Professional Boundaries for Clinicians, Privacy, Consent and Chaperone.
2. Communicate appropriately and effectively: Effective Communication, Social Media Professionalism.
3. Work within the limits of your knowledge and skills: Clinical Competence and Patient Safety.
4. Delegate appropriately: Teamwork and Collaboration.
5. Respect confidentiality: Confidentiality in Healthcare Practice.
6. Manage risk: Clinical Competence and Patient Safety.
7. Report concerns about safety: Duty of Candour.
8. Be open when things go wrong: Duty of Candour.
9. Be honest and trustworthy: Probity for Healthcare Professionals, Financial Integrity (see is an HCPC probity course enough for an honesty concern?).
10. Keep records of your work: Professionalism in Documentation.

Where the concern covers several standards, or the wording is general (“ethics”, “professionalism”), the two courses written for HCPC registrants cover all ten. More in our HCPC standards guide.

What should you do when you are told to complete a course?

1. Read the exact wording. Your conditions, consent order, panel decision or employer’s plan says what the course must cover, by when, and who must see the evidence. Keep a copy beside you.
2. Choose the course on that subject. Match it to the standard or the subject named. If the wording is unclear, ask your HCPC case manager or your adviser before you buy; the HCPC does not approve courses, so the match is yours to show.
3. Complete it and keep the dated certificate. Each course ends with an assessment and a dated certificate showing the course, the date and the CPD hours.
4. Write a reflection. What happened, which standard it fell short of, the effect on service users and on trust in your profession, what you learned on the course, and what you now do differently. The Module on Reflection (£49) takes you through that structure.
5. Send it as directed, and keep a record. Send the certificate and reflection to the HCPC, your workplace supervisor or your employer, as your conditions say, before any deadline, and keep copies for the review hearing.

Our courses for HCPC registrants and the Bulk Buy offer

Every course below is online and self-paced, with immediate access and a dated certificate. They serve a registrant told to complete a course or responding to an HCPC concern, and one planning CPD.

For the later stages

Bulk Buy: any 3 courses for £200, 5 for £300 or 10 for £500. See the HCPC courses guide for every course by subject and how they fit HCPC CPD.

Guides that help

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, Professional Boundaries for Clinicians, Privacy, Consent and Chaperone in Healthcare Practice, Ensuring Effective Communication as Healthcare Professionals and Professionalism and Boundaries in Use of Social Media, 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