Ethics and Ethical Standards for HCPC Regulated Health and Care Professionals

About this course

The Health and Care Professions Council regulates fifteen distinct professions, from paramedics working alone at the roadside to biomedical scientists who may never meet a patient, and from practitioner psychologists to hearing aid dispensers working in a commercial setting. Despite these differences, every registrant works to the same Standards of conduct, performance and ethics, and every registrant can face the same ethical questions: how to obtain valid consent, when to share information, how to keep relationships professional, what to do when something goes wrong, and how to stay within their scope of practice.

This course explains the ethical principles behind the HCPC's standards and applies them to situations HCPC registrants actually face. It covers the HCPC's role, protected titles and scope of practice, the core principles, honesty and candour, records, conflicts of interest, consent and communication, delegation and supervision, boundaries, and how the HCPC responds when standards are breached.

CPD Value and How to Record It:

This course is designed to provide approximately 2 hours of learning, including reading, the reflection points, the reflective account and the assessment. In the UK, CPD is generally recorded as the time actually spent learning, so you should record the time you genuinely spend, which may be more or less than the estimate.

How the course fits your revalidation or CPD requirements depends on your regulator. For example, the NMC asks nurses, midwives and nursing associates to record 35 hours of CPD over three years, of which at least 20 must be participatory; self-directed online learning such as this course usually counts as individual learning unless you complete it with others. The GMC expects doctors to reflect on CPD for appraisal and revalidation rather than setting a fixed number of hours. The HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC and GCC each set their own CPD requirements, so check the current rules that apply to you. Always keep your certificate together with your written reflection.

What you will learn

• Explain why ethics is central to practice in every HCPC profession.
• Describe the HCPC's role, protected titles and the importance of scope of practice.
• Apply autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and confidentiality.
• Act with honesty, apply the duty to be open when things go wrong, and keep good records.
• Manage conflicts of interest, consent, delegation and supervision ethically.
• Keep relationships with service users and carers professional.
• Understand the HCPC fitness to practise process and how to remediate.

Who this course is for

All fifteen HCPC regulated professions, including paramedics, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, speech and language therapists, dietitians, practitioner psychologists, biomedical and clinical scientists, and those responding to a concern.

Course content

9 sections · 2 CPD hours · 15 MCQs

Course facts

CPD value

Approximately 2 CPD hours (estimated learning time, including reflection and assessment); suitable for your HCPC CPD profile

Format

Self-paced reading with profession-specific cases, reflection points and a written reflective account

Standards covered

HCPC Standards of conduct, performance and ethics; standards of proficiency (2023); standards of CPD; HCPC fitness to practise process; Mental Capacity Act 2005 and consent law

Assessment

15 scenario-based multiple-choice questions; pass mark 12 out of 15 (80%)

Questions about this course