Honesty in Applications, CVs and References for Healthcare Professionals

This honesty and integrity CPD course focuses on the documents where healthcare professionals describe themselves and others: applications, CVs, interviews, portfolios, declarations to the regulator and references. These are where many probity concerns begin, and the course shows why. Dishonesty is not limited to inventing a qualification. It includes rounding up experience, describing data collection as "leading" an audit, leaving out a disciplinary investigation, or writing a glowing reference for a colleague who left during a process.

The course explains why probity in these documents matters to patient safety and public trust, the forms dishonesty can take, including exaggeration and misleading omission, and the regulatory, employment and criminal consequences. It then gives practical guidance on presenting qualifications, employment history and achievements accurately; answering questions about conduct, criminal records and health honestly and lawfully; keeping logbooks and revalidation evidence accurate; using AI tools responsibly; writing fair references and testimonials; and correcting errors.

It suits every registered professional, and particularly anyone applying for posts or training, writing references, or reflecting on a probity concern. It is designed to take approximately 2 hours, including reading, reflection points, a written reflective account and a 15-question assessment. You buy and take it on our course portal; see the course catalogue. Healthcare Practise UK is an independent provider, not affiliated with any UK regulator or the NHS.

Module 2 summarises what the regulators and employers expect. Across all of them, three expectations recur: do not make false or misleading statements about yourself or others; take reasonable care to check that what you say is accurate; and correct errors when you discover them.

The course also explains how panels assess dishonesty, including the two-stage test courts apply, and why non-declaration of a required matter is often treated more seriously than the matter itself. Our Probity for Healthcare Professionals course covers probity in finances, research and records more broadly.

• Why honesty about yourself matters. Probity and trust, where professionals describe themselves and others, forms of dishonesty and their consequences.
• What regulators and employers expect. Regulators' expectations, what you must declare to your regulator, pre-employment checks, and how regulators approach dishonesty.
• Writing an honest CV and application. Qualifications, registration and employment history; experience and achievements; reasons for leaving and conduct questions; criminal records and health questions.
• Interviews, portfolios and other self-reports. Verbal claims at interview; portfolios, logbooks, CPD and revalidation; agencies, indemnity and immigration; and using AI tools in applications.
• Writing honest references for others. Your responsibilities as a referee, including concerns fairly, the legal and data protection context, and character references and testimonials.
• Correcting errors, raising concerns and building integrity. Correcting your own errors, what to do if you suspect a colleague, insight and remediation after a probity concern, and supporting a culture of integrity.

The cases are specific: an occupational therapist who writes two years' band 6 experience when she has 14 months and then calls it a typing error; a paramedic unsure whether to declare an old caution at renewal; a locum who tells one agency about conditions on his registration but not the other; and a senior nurse who writes a testimonial for an NMC hearing only after reading the charges. The lesson on AI is direct: you are responsible for every word you submit, whoever or whatever drafted it.

Your reflective account asks what you have learned about exaggeration and misleading omission; what you will correct or present more accurately after reviewing your own CV, portfolio and recent declarations; and how you will approach references and testimonials, and suspected dishonesty in a colleague, in future.

The assessment has 15 scenario-based questions, including a settlement agreement that asks you to leave a patient-safety concern out of a reference, a trainee who logs supervised procedures as independent, and a radiographer who realises six months into a post that her application overstated a qualification. The pass mark is 12 out of 15 (80%). On completion you receive a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

For CPD, record the time you actually spend. Nurses, midwives and nursing associates should note that self-directed online learning normally counts towards the NMC's individual CPD hours rather than its 20 participatory hours, unless you complete it with others. Doctors reflect on CPD at appraisal; the GMC does not set fixed hours. The HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC, GCC and Social Work England each set their own CPD rules, so check what applies to you, and check whether your employer requires a specific course. Keep your certificate and your reflection together.

Dishonesty is often described as harder to remediate than a gap in skills, because it raises questions about character. The course's remediation lesson focuses on what panels weigh: whether conduct was a single lapse or a pattern, premeditated or opportunistic, linked to patient safety or financial gain, and, above all, whether the professional admitted it promptly or maintained a false account. Its central case shows how an initial false explanation made a modest exaggeration far more serious.

If a concern about an application, CV, declaration or reference has been raised, the course can support honest reflection alongside targeted steps such as correcting the record and telling every organisation that relied on it. Take advice from your defence organisation or union before you respond to a regulator. Our probity and dishonesty remediation page sets out a fuller plan, and the reflective statement builder helps you put your reflection into your own words. Courses support remediation; panels decide.

For recruiters, practice managers and educational supervisors who write many references, the referee module is a useful shared standard, and teams can be enrolled through team credits.

This course sits in our conduct and professional behaviour group. Related titles include Probity for Healthcare Professionals, Bullying, Harassment and Workplace Civility in Healthcare and Sexual Safety and Preventing Sexual Misconduct in Healthcare. Use the which course do I need tool if you are unsure where to start.