Medical Ethics for Healthcare Professionals

This medical ethics course is about what the principles mean when they collide at the bedside. It takes the cases UK professionals meet, such as a capable adult refusing life-sustaining treatment, a resuscitation decision, disclosing confidential information to protect someone else, a conscientious objection or a decision about scarce resources, and explains the law and regulatory guidance that shape the answer.

It is the longest of our general courses, at about 3 hours including the reflective account and a 15-question scenario test. You work through it on the portal at your own pace and receive a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

The course is written for all UK healthcare professionals. Its regulatory content draws most on the GMC, NMC, HCPC and GDC. It suits:

• doctors, nurses, dentists and allied health professionals who want CPD on ethical reasoning rather than a list of rules;
• clinicians who make or contribute to decisions on capacity, best interests, resuscitation or end-of-life care;
• registrants facing an investigation where an ethical judgement has been questioned;
• educators and supervisors who teach ethical decision-making.

If your concern is about honesty or behaviour rather than a clinical judgement, look at the conduct and trust page first.

A method you can reuse

Module 3 teaches the four-topics approach of Jonsen, Siegler and Winslade: medical indications, patient preferences, quality of life as the patient would judge it, and contextual features such as family, law, resources and conflicts of interest. Working through each one stops important factors being missed. The course then shows when to involve colleagues, a clinical ethics committee or your defence organisation, and when a court application may be needed.

Law and cases you will meet

The course explains leading UK cases on withdrawing treatment, best interests, DNACPR decisions, confidentiality and conscientious objection, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. It also covers the Mental Health Act 2025 reforms and where assisted dying legislation stands across the UK.

Each principle is paired with what the regulators actually require, so you can link your learning to your own standards in a CPD record or reflective account.

See what the GMC expects and what the NMC expects for CPD and revalidation detail. Always check the current version of your regulator’s guidance.

Module 6 is about addressing a breach: why reflection matters, how to reflect well, and the steps that rebuild trust and skills. If you are taking the course because a decision of yours has been questioned:

• pass the 15-question assessment (12 out of 15 is the pass mark) and keep the certificate;
• use the course’s reflective prompt to describe a dilemma from your own practice and how you would approach it now, using the four topics;
• build that into a structured statement with the reflective statement builder;
• add the insight module and reflection module if you need to show understanding, not only knowledge;
• add the remediation module to plan and evidence the wider steps.

A course on its own is rarely enough. Decision makers want to see that the learning is relevant to the concern and that your practice has changed.

Healthcare Practise UK is an independent CPD provider. We are not affiliated with any regulator or with the NHS, and no regulator has reviewed this course. A course can support your reflection and remediation, but your regulator, case examiners or a panel make the decisions, and nothing you buy here predicts an outcome. If you are under investigation, take advice from your defence organisation, union or a solicitor as well.

Medical Ethics is a stand-alone course. It is not part of a fixed pack, but it pairs well with the Conduct and Trust Pack when an ethical judgement sits behind a conduct concern. Profession-specific ethics courses are also in the course catalogue, and the course finder will point you to the one written for your regulator.