Ethics, Probity and Professionalism Courses for healthcare professionals facing a complaint, an investigation or a fitness to practise inquiry

Start with the Core Set above. Those nine cover both halves of what your regulator reads: the standards you are judged against — the Ethics and Professionalism pair written for your own profession — and what it weighs once the facts are settled: insight, reflection, remediation, assurance the concern will not recur, and how the process itself works. They apply to every complaint, whatever the concern.

Then add the courses that match the concern actually raised. The page for your own regulator groups the remaining courses by the type of concern, so choose the type named in your letter and you will see the courses that address it directly.

Speak to your indemnifier, representative body or solicitor before you respond. They will tell you what evidence is appropriate for your particular matter. If you are taking several: one course is €100, two courses are €175, three are €250, five are €400 and ten are €700. The saving is applied in the basket; the Bulk Buy Offer sets out the price for each number of courses.

It depends on the stage your matter is at. Your regulator receives the complaint; a Preliminary Proceedings Committee decides whether there is enough cause for further action (at the Dental Council, its Fitness to Practise Committee decides whether there is a prima facie case); an inquiry committee hears the evidence; and the High Court confirms a sanction. Check the letterhead on your letter, and see who deals with your complaint above for the full picture.

You are told in writing. The Medical Council says: “When a complaint is made against you, we will notify you of the complaint in writing.” For complaints made from 6 May 2025, its chief executive officer looks at the complaint first and, in the Council’s words, “in most cases, the CEO will assign an Authorised Officer” to investigate before the Preliminary Proceedings Committee decides what happens next. At NMBI, a case officer will “write to you enclosing a copy of the complaint and any supporting documentation received”.

The Medical Council, NMBI, the PSI and CORU do not publish a fixed deadline for your first reply. NMBI says “you may request an extension of time to respond to a complaint”, and the Medical Council gives a doctor “a reasonable period (not less than 2 weeks)” to respond to its Investigation Report. Take advice before you reply — NMBI advises registrants to “contact your representative body and / or obtain legal advice”.

Yes, in limited circumstances. The Medical Council can seek interim suspension “under section 60 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007”. The PSI says that where there is “a serious and immediate risk” the Council can seek suspension from the High Court, and the Dental Council may apply to the High Court for suspension under section 44 of the Dentists Act 1985 — its Annual Report 2024 records one dentist suspended this way. An interim step of this kind is not a finding against you.

Contact your indemnifier, representative body or solicitor the same day. What you put in writing first shapes everything that follows.

Yes. Healthcare Ethics Courses issues a CPD certificate for every course, recording 2 CPD hours, the course title and the date of completion. That is what makes it usable as evidence in a response, a remediation plan or a professional development record. More on the issuer here.

CPD requirements differ by profession. Doctors must complete a minimum of 50 hours of CPD in each scheme year through a professional competence scheme under the Medical Council’s 2025 rules; CORU registrants must achieve 30 CPD credits in every 12-month period; pharmacists record CPD through the Irish Institute of Pharmacy’s ePortfolio. Check with your scheme or record how the hours should be entered.

Access runs for twelve months from the date of purchase. You start immediately, work at your own pace, and there is no schedule to keep to within that period.

Finishing a course does not end your access. Once you have completed it and downloaded your certificate you can return to the material whenever you wish for the rest of the twelve months, at no further cost.

No. The certificate records the date you completed the course, and that date does not change. Revisiting the material inside your twelve months does not produce a newly dated one.

If you need a certificate carrying a later date — because your regulator, an inquiry committee or an employer has asked for recent evidence — you buy the course again. Within twelve months of your original purchase a repeat is half price; after twelve months it is the full €100.

No. No course, from us or from anyone else, determines the outcome of a complaint, a Preliminary Proceedings Committee decision or a fitness to practise inquiry, and a provider suggesting otherwise should be treated with caution.

What a course can do is help you build the insight and reflection your response needs, and give you a dated, verifiable certificate to evidence it. How much weight that carries depends on the circumstances of the individual case.

Four things, and the order matters. Whether you understand what went wrong. Whether you accept responsibility for your part in it. Whether you recognise the effect it had — on the patient, on colleagues, and on public confidence in the profession. And whether you can show meaningful change as a result.

The regulators’ own guidance points the same way. The Medical Council’s Guidance on Sanctions says “A medical practitioner may demonstrate insight by providing evidence of their understanding of the problem”; NMBI’s Guidance on Sanctions says “Mere acknowledgement of the findings does not necessarily demonstrate insight.” The Insight, Reflection and Remediation courses address each of the four in turn.

Undertakings and conditions can involve further study. At the Preliminary Proceedings Committee stage the Medical Council may ask a doctor to “Undertake to be referred to a professional competence scheme”, and NMBI’s sanctions guidance says conditions may require that “a nurse or midwife undertakes a specific training course”. Our Ethics, Professionalism, Professional Boundaries and Ethical Boundaries courses are written for remediation, and each issues a dated certificate.

Whether a particular course satisfies a particular undertaking or condition is for the body that set it. Read the wording with your indemnifier, representative body or solicitor before you enrol.

Yes. There is no registration check and no requirement to hold current registration. The courses are open to practitioners who are suspended, who have conditions attached to their registration, or who are working towards restoration to the register, as well as to those with a live complaint.

If conditions require you to complete something specific, check the wording with your indemnifier, representative body or solicitor before choosing, so that what you complete matches what was required.

The one written for the regulator you are registered with, because its code is the standard your conduct is measured against: the Medical Council’s Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for doctors, NMBI’s Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for nurses and midwives, the Dental Council’s Code of Practice regarding Professional Behaviour and Ethical Conduct, the PSI’s Code of Conduct for pharmacists, and for each CORU profession its own Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics. A response that quotes the wrong document invites the reply that you have not understood what you are answering.

CORU registers twelve professions: dietitians, medical scientists, occupational therapists, dispensing opticians, optometrists, physiotherapists, podiatrists, radiographers, radiation therapists, social care workers, social workers, and speech and language therapists. Psychologists are not yet regulated — CORU says “the opening of the first three registers is now expected in 2027” — and the registers for counsellors and psychotherapists are not yet open either. If you work in one of those professions, or in any other, use the page for all healthcare professionals.

The Regulated Professions (Health and Social Care) (Amendment) Act 2020 amended the Acts behind all five regulators and was brought into force in stages from 2021. On 6 May 2025 the Medical Council’s new complaint process began, with the chief executive officer screening each complaint first, and the Dentists Act gained new grounds of inquiry and a new rule for its lightest sanctions.

Under the amended Acts, an advice, admonishment or censure takes effect only once the court confirms it or the appeal window passes without an appeal — 21 days for doctors, nurses, midwives and dentists, and 30 days for pharmacists and CORU registrants. The Acts also now treat a prohibition on, or restriction of, practising in another jurisdiction as a ground of complaint.

Yes. Courses are taken privately online at your own pace. We never share participant details with any regulator, an inquiry committee, an employer, a union or an indemnifier unless you choose to do so yourself.

You can complete a course before deciding whether to include it in a response at all.

Your own regulator’s code. NMBI’s Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics, for example, tells nurses and midwives not to “use your professional position to form a relationship of a sexual, emotional or exploitative nature”, and to “treat colleagues with respect”. Boundaries cover colleagues as well as patients, and citing another regulator’s code is worse than citing nothing.

Boundaries appear in the regulators’ own figures: CORU’s fitness to practise trends report lists professional boundaries as a theme in 7% of the cases it concluded between 2022 and 2024. Maintaining the boundary is the professional’s responsibility, not the patient’s or the colleague’s. Contact your indemnifier, representative body or solicitor before responding to an allegation in this category, and before contacting the patient, the colleague or anyone connected with them.

Yes. Practitioners who trained overseas may be working through an unfamiliar regulatory system at the same time as responding to a complaint, and the vocabulary differs — registration rather than licence, a Preliminary Proceedings Committee, undertakings and consents, and a separate regulator for doctors, nurses and midwives, dentists, pharmacists and the CORU professions.

Practice elsewhere also matters in its own right: since the 2020 Act, being subject to “a prohibition on, or restriction of” practising in another jurisdiction is a ground of complaint under each of the Acts. The courses are written to Irish codes and explain the process in Irish terms.