Professionalism and Professional Standards for HCPC Regulated Health and Care Professionals

HCPC registrants work in ambulances, private clinics, imaging departments, laboratories, schools, courts and high street shops, and many run their own businesses. This HCPC professionalism course is written for that variety. It explains what the HCPC expects of you as a registrant: renewing every two years, keeping a CPD record that would survive an audit, meeting the standards of proficiency revised in 2023, and behaving professionally online and outside work.

The course takes about 2 hours, including a scenario quiz and a written reflection. Cases include an operating department practitioner whose sarcasm is undermining a theatre team, a clinical scientist asked to report a result outside her specialist training, and a prosthetist who challenges a colleague for calling a patient "the diabetic amputee in bay three".

Healthcare Practise UK is an independent provider. This course is not affiliated with or endorsed by any regulator, and completing it does not change any regulatory decision. Regulators and panels decide cases; your course record is one piece of evidence among many.

• Registrants in any of the fifteen HCPC professions, in NHS, private, independent or non-clinical roles.
• Sole practitioners and clinic owners who handle their own advertising, records and data protection.
• Practice educators and supervisors of students and support workers.
• Registrants returning to practice, or preparing for renewal or a CPD audit.
• Anyone responding to a concern about behaviour, communication, online conduct or declarations.

For consent, capacity, confidentiality and the four ethical principles, take the companion HCPC ethics course.

Five teaching modules, a conclusion, a references page and a reflective account. The outline, as it appears in the course:

1. An Overview of Professionalism for Health & Care Professionals: Defining Professionalism; Why Professionalism Matters; The HCPC's Role in Ensuring Professional Standards; Registration, CPD and Returning to Practice.
2. Core Principles of Professionalism: Patient-Centred Care; Integrity and Honesty; Accountability and Responsibility; Confidentiality and Respect for Privacy; Effective Communication; Respect and Dignity; Teamwork and Collaboration; Reflective Practice; Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Practice.
3. The HCPC's 'Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics': An Overview of the 'Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics'; The Standards of Proficiency: What Changed in 2023; Professionalism in Independent and Private Practice; Interprofessional Working, Professional Bodies and Supporting Learners.
4. Professional Boundaries and Ethical Conduct: Understanding Boundaries; HCPC Guidance on Boundaries; Social Media, Online Conduct and Behaviour Outside Work.
5. Breach of Professional Standards, Its Consequences, and Remediation: Understanding Breaches; Consequences of Breaching Standards; Regulatory Actions; Steps for Remediation.
6. Conclusion and Takeaways.
7. Reflection.

The module on the standards of proficiency explains the themes that changed on 1 September 2023 across every profession: the centrality of the service user, equality, diversity and inclusion, promoting public health, registrants' own mental health and wellbeing, digital skills and new technologies, and leadership at all levels. The independent practice lesson covers advertising, business pressures and data protection duties that fall on the registrant personally.

The course is built on three sets of HCPC standards: the Standards of conduct, performance and ethics (revised version in effect from 1 September 2024), the profession-specific Standards of proficiency, and the Standards of continuing professional development.

The CPD lesson matches what the HCPC publishes. You must:

• keep a continuous, up-to-date and accurate record of your CPD;
• show that your CPD is a mixture of learning activities relevant to current or future practice;
• seek to ensure your CPD has improved the quality of your practice and service delivery;
• seek to ensure your CPD benefits the service user;
• if audited, present a written profile, your own work and supported by evidence, explaining how you met the standards.

There is no fixed number of hours. At each renewal the HCPC selects 2.5% of each profession for audit. The profile has a summary of your practice of up to 500 words, a statement of up to 1,500 words on how you met the standards, a dated list of CPD from the last two years and supporting evidence. This course's certificate and reflection, plus a note on how you applied the learning, fit straight into that structure. More detail is on the HCPC regulator page.

Module 5 sorts breaches into clinical errors, unprofessional behaviour, ethical violations and failures to declare, then explains the HCPC process and the sanctions available. It also explains why single errors handled openly are usually dealt with locally, while repeated, serious or concealed problems reach the regulator.

A professionalism course will not resolve a concern on its own. The HCPTS practice note on impairment shows that panels look for insight into the risk of repetition and for evidence that the concern has been addressed. To build that evidence:

• Use the module that matches your concern as structured learning, not as the whole answer.
• Write a reflection that names what happened, its impact on service users and colleagues, and the change you have made. The reflective statement builder can help you organise it.
• Collect proof of change: feedback from colleagues, supervision records, revised social media settings or a corrected website.
• Add the insight course and reflective practice course if you need to show understanding as well as knowledge.
• Check what you submit with your union, professional body or legal adviser.

Each module ends with key points, a worked example and an "apply it" task. The final assessment has 15 scenario-based multiple-choice questions and the pass mark is 12 out of 15 (80%). If you score lower, the course points you back to the sections behind the questions you missed and you can try again. After you pass, you write a short reflective account against three prompts. The reflection is stored on your own device only and is not sent to us, so keep a copy with your certificate. The certificate of completion is issued in the name Healthcare Practise UK and records the course title and date. The course itself says it plainly: passing supports your learning record; it does not by itself demonstrate insight or remediation.

The second reflection prompt asks how you will strengthen your CPD record so that it shows impact on practice and on service users. That is the question an HCPC audit assessor will ask too.

Pair this course with the HCPC ethics course for full coverage of the HCPC's expectations. For a conduct, behaviour or trust concern, the Conduct and Trust Pack includes Rebuilding Trust, Professionalism for Healthcare Professionals, Fitness to Practise, How to Deal with a Complaint or Investigation, and the insight, reflection and remediation modules.

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