Ethics for Healthcare Professionals

About this course

Ethical questions are part of everyday practice for every health and care professional: how much to tell a patient, whether to respect a risky choice, when to share information without consent, how to allocate limited time and resources, and what to do when a colleague's practice is unsafe. Most of these questions do not have a single right answer, but there are better and worse ways of reasoning through them, and every UK regulator expects professionals to act ethically and to be able to explain their decisions.

This course explains the core ethical principles, the main ethical theories and how to use them, a practical method for working through a dilemma, the sources of ethical support available, the ethical standards of each UK regulator, and common dilemmas including consent and capacity, end of life decisions, confidentiality and public safety, raising concerns, scarce resources, adult safeguarding and new technologies. It also covers moral distress and how professionals can recover after an ethical breach.

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 the core ethical principles and how they relate to professional duties.
• Apply ethical theories and a structured method to real dilemmas.
• Identify sources of ethical advice, including clinical ethics services.
• Describe the ethical standards of the UK healthcare regulators.
• Reason through common dilemmas in line with UK law and guidance.
• Recognise moral distress and respond to it constructively.
• Show insight, reflection and remediation after an ethical breach.

Who this course is for

Doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, allied health professionals and all registered health and care professionals, including those responding to a complaint or fitness to practise concern.

Social workers: this cross-profession course covers principles that apply across health and social care; most worked examples come from healthcare settings.

Course content

9 sections · 2 CPD hours · 15 MCQs

Course facts

CPD value

Approximately 2 CPD hours (estimated learning time, including reflection and assessment)

Format

Self-paced reading with ethical dilemmas, a structured reasoning method, reflection points and a written reflective account

Standards covered

Standards of the GMC, NMC, HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC and GCC; Mental Capacity Act 2005; Care Act 2014; key UK case law on consent and confidentiality

Assessment

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

Questions about this course