Burnout, Resilience and Wellbeing for Healthcare Professionals

This burnout and resilience course for healthcare professionals helps you understand burnout and look after your own wellbeing so that you can care safely and sustainably for others. It is written for doctors, nurses, midwives, nursing associates, allied health professionals, paramedics, pharmacy and dental professionals, optometrists, osteopaths, chiropractors, social workers, students and support staff across the UK.

It starts from an honest position. Burnout is not a personal weakness, and it often affects the most conscientious people precisely because they care. The World Health Organization describes it as an occupational phenomenon caused by chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, so the course looks at the conditions of work as well as at the individual. Resilience is treated as something shared between you, your team and your organisation, not as the ability to absorb unlimited pressure. If you are doing everything "right" and still struggling, the course is clear that the problem is likely to lie in your work, not in your resilience.

It is designed to take about 2 hours, including reading, reflection points, a reflective account and a 15-question assessment, and is self-paced. You buy and take it on our course portal; the course catalogue lists related titles. Healthcare Practise UK is an independent provider. We are not affiliated with any UK regulator or the NHS, and none of them has reviewed this course. The course is educational and is not a substitute for medical or psychological care.

The course works from published frameworks rather than general self-help advice.

Module 5 sets out what the regulators expect of you about your own health: GMC Good medical practice, the NMC Code, and the standards of the HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC, GCC and Social Work England. They expect you to look after your health, seek help and limit your practice if your judgement is affected. Having a health condition, including a mental health condition, is not in itself a fitness to practise concern.

1. Understanding burnout

The three dimensions of burnout, how it differs from stress, depression, anxiety, compassion fatigue, moral injury and post-traumatic stress, why staff wellbeing and patient safety are linked, and warning signs across body, emotions, thinking, behaviour and relationships, with a short self-check.

2. Causes: work, systems and the individual

The HSE Management Standards applied to healthcare, the core needs of autonomy, belonging and contribution, moral distress and moral injury, and particular pressures such as night work, trauma exposure, complaints and fitness to practise processes, incivility and discrimination.

3. Resilience reconsidered: personal strategies

Resilience at individual, team and organisational level, practical rest and sleep strategies for shift workers (including planning a safe journey home after nights), self-compassion, reframing, boundaries and mindfulness, and how to reflect without slipping into rumination.

4. Teams, culture and leadership

Psychological safety, the four behaviours of compassionate leadership, structured peer support such as Schwartz Rounds, Balint groups, restorative supervision with Professional Nurse Advocates, TRiM and debriefs, and a step-by-step approach to supporting a colleague who is struggling.

5. Getting help and professional responsibilities

What regulators expect about your own health, sources of support in each nation (your GP, occupational health, NHS Practitioner Health in England, the National Wellbeing Hub in Scotland, Health for Health Professionals Wales and professional charities), urgent contacts including Samaritans on 116 123, and reasonable adjustments and phased returns to work.

6. Sustaining wellbeing over a career

Building a personal wellbeing plan, setting boundaries on workload, finding meaning and joy in work, career sustainability, and using appraisal, revalidation and CPD to support wellbeing.

Case illustrations make the learning concrete: a senior physiotherapist who has stopped taking breaks, a ward nurse experiencing moral distress over staffing, a GP replaying consultations at night, a pharmacist who notices a colleague's near misses, and a paramedic returning after anxiety-related absence. Reflection points and "apply it" tasks include rating your own work against the six HSE areas and drafting the first version of your wellbeing plan.

The assessment has 15 scenario-based questions, from how ICD-11 describes burnout to the safest choice for a drowsy paramedic driving home after nights. The pass mark is 12 out of 15 (80%), with the chance to revisit sections and try again.

Your reflective account asks you to describe your current wellbeing honestly, set out the changes you will make to rest, recovery and boundaries, and explain how you will help colleagues feel safe to say they are struggling. Do not include anything that could identify a patient or colleague. On completion you receive a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

Wellbeing is a legitimate part of professional development. Nurses, midwives and nursing associates can record the time towards the NMC's 35 hours of CPD over three years; self-directed online learning usually counts as individual rather than participatory learning unless you complete it with others. Doctors can reflect on it for appraisal, where wellbeing can also be discussed; the GMC does not set fixed CPD hours. The HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC, GCC and Social Work England each set their own CPD rules, so check what applies to you. The CPD and revalidation tracker helps you log the time and reflection together.

If you are going through a complaint, investigation or fitness to practise process, the course recognises how stressful that can be and points you to the emotional support most regulators now offer, as well as to your defence organisation or union.

Teams and leaders can use it to start a conversation about psychological safety, breaks and peer support. See for organisations for team credits.

• Preparing Your Appraisal and Revalidation Portfolio, for evidence, reflection and meeting your regulator's requirements;
• Locum and Agency Working: Professional Risks and Good Practice, for safe practice when you move between settings;
• Ethics and Professional Standards in Aesthetic and Cosmetic Practice, for consent, advertising and prescribing if aesthetic work is part of your career.

The career and wellbeing training page lists all titles in this group, and which course do I need suggests where to start.