Professionalism and Professional Standards for Nurses and Midwives

This NMC Code course is about how nurses, midwives and nursing associates earn and keep trust day to day. It covers how you communicate, delegate and supervise, support students, respond to pressure and mistakes, keep your knowledge current and behave outside work. It works through the four themes of the Code (prioritise people, practise effectively, preserve safety, and promote professionalism and trust) and links them to revalidation.

The course takes about 2 hours, including a scenario quiz and a reflective account. Its cases come from real workplace pressures: a senior staff nurse who criticises junior colleagues in front of patients, a nurse told by a consultant to give a dose she believes is too high, and an older man left waiting partly undressed when a healthcare assistant is called away.

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.

• Registered nurses, midwives and nursing associates in any setting.
• Practice supervisors, practice assessors and preceptors.
• Ward managers, team leaders and anyone acting as a revalidation confirmer.
• Nurses and midwives moving into advanced practice or prescribing roles.
• Registrants responding to a concern about behaviour, delegation, teamwork, online conduct or declarations.

For consent, capacity, candour, confidentiality and conscientious objection, see the companion ethics course for nurses and midwives.

Five teaching modules, a conclusion, a references page and a reflective account. The lessons, as listed in the course:

1. An Overview of Professionalism for Nurses and Midwives: Defining Professionalism; Why Professionalism Matters; The NMC's Role in Ensuring Professional Standards; Registration, Revalidation and Indemnity.
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; Wellbeing, Safe Staffing and Working Under Pressure.
3. The NMC's 'The Code': An Overview of 'The Code'; Delegation and Accountability; Supporting Students, Preceptees and New Colleagues; Leadership and Speaking Up; Extending Your Scope: Advanced Practice and Prescribing.
4. Professional Boundaries and Ethical Conduct: Understanding Boundaries; NMC 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.

Distinctive topics include safe staffing law in Wales (Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016) and Scotland (Health and Care Staffing (Scotland) Act 2019, in force from 1 April 2024). The course also covers the NMC's standards for student supervision and assessment, its principles for preceptorship, and what extending your scope safely involves when you move into advanced clinical practice or non-medical prescribing.

Module 3 is built on the NMC Code and picks out the standards that most often come up in professional practice:

• Standard 11: accountability for decisions to delegate.
• Standards 13 and 18: working within competence and medicines within the limits of training and the law.
• Standards 16 and 17: acting without delay on risks to safety and raising concerns.
• Standards 20, 23 and 24: honesty and integrity, cooperating with investigations and responding to complaints.
• Standard 25: leadership to protect wellbeing and improve care.

Revalidation every three years requires 450 practice hours (900 for dual registration as a nurse and midwife), 35 hours of CPD with at least 20 participatory, five pieces of practice-related feedback, five written reflective accounts linked to the Code, a reflective discussion with another NMC registrant, a health and character declaration, an indemnity arrangement and confirmation. This course counts as individual learning towards the 35 hours. The reflective account you write at the end can become one of your five. Our NMC regulator page sets out the full list with sources.

Module 5 sorts breaches into clinical errors, unprofessional behaviour, ethical violations and failures to declare, and explains screening, case examiners, interim orders and the Fitness to Practise Committee. It is explicit that single errors handled openly are usually dealt with locally, and that concerns escalate when errors are serious, repeated or concealed.

The NMC's FTP-16 guidance on insight and strengthened practice explains that decision makers consider whether a concern has been addressed and how relevant any training is to it. This course supports that work but does not complete it. A practical sequence:

• Complete the module that matches your concern, such as delegation, behaviour towards colleagues or online conduct.
• Write a reflection on what happened, its impact and what has changed. The reflective statement builder uses the NMC reflective account headings.
• Gather evidence from practice: feedback, supervision records, a manager's reference or a changed team process.
• Add the insight course and the reflective practice course where the concern calls for deeper reflection.
• Check your evidence with your union, the RCN or RCM, or a solicitor before it goes to the NMC.

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 reflection prompts ask which standard of the Code you will use for a revalidation reflective account and what your action plan is, so the effort carries straight into your portfolio.

Pair this course with the ethics course for nurses and midwives for full coverage of the Code. For conduct, behaviour or trust concerns, the Conduct and Trust Pack combines 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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