Ethics and Ethical Standards for Nurses and Midwives

This ethics course for nurses and midwives starts from a simple observation: nurses, midwives and nursing associates spend more time with patients and families than any other professionals, often at their most vulnerable moments. They are often the first to notice that something is wrong and the ones expected to speak up. The course applies the four ethical principles to that reality and links each one to the NMC Code.

It takes about 2 hours, including a scenario quiz and a written reflective account. There is a dedicated lesson on midwifery ethics: a pregnant woman with capacity has the right to decline interventions such as induction, continuous monitoring or caesarean section, and midwives must keep providing safe, supportive care whatever she decides. Lessons draw on what national inquiries, from Mid Staffordshire to maternity services, showed about the cost of not listening.

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 in hospital, community, mental health, learning disability and care home settings.
• Midwives, including community and continuity-of-carer teams.
• Nursing associates.
• Registrants looking for CPD and a reflective account for revalidation.
• Anyone responding to a concern about consent, capacity, confidentiality, candour, records or boundaries.

If your focus is delegation, supporting students and preceptees, leadership or safe staffing, the NMC Code course covers those topics.

Six teaching modules, a conclusion, a references page and a reflective account. The lessons, as they appear in the course:

1. An Overview of Healthcare Ethics: What Healthcare Ethics Is; Why Ethics Matters in Nursing and Midwifery; The Role of the NMC; Ethics in Midwifery: Choice, Consent and Listening to Women.
2. The Core Ethical Principles in Healthcare Practice: Autonomy; Beneficence and Non-Maleficence; Justice; Confidentiality; Capacity, Best Interests and Restrictive Practice.
3. Professional Integrity and Honesty: Maintaining Honesty and Integrity; The Duty of Candour; Documentation and Record-Keeping; Raising and Escalating Concerns.
4. Patient-Centred Care and Shared Decision-Making: Informed Consent; Patient Communication; Conscientious Objection.
5. Professional Boundaries and Conduct: Maintaining Appropriate Boundaries; NMC Guidance on Boundaries.
6. Breaches of Expected Ethical Standards: Common Breaches; Consequences of Breaching Ethical Standards; The NMC's Actions in Response to Breaches; Steps to Remediate a Breach.
7. Conclusion and Takeaways.
8. Reflection.

Practical themes run through the modules. They include respecting a choice that carries risk, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and avoiding unnecessary restrictive practice, and sharing information safely on the phone, at handover and in messaging groups. Others are what to do when staffing makes safe care difficult, and the narrow legal limits of conscientious objection under the Abortion Act 1967 and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

The NMC Code sets out the professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and nursing associates under four themes. The course refers to specific Code standards throughout:

For revalidation, the NMC asks for 35 hours of CPD every three years, at least 20 of them participatory, plus five written reflective accounts linked to the Code. A self-paced online course you complete alone counts as individual learning, so it contributes to the 35 hours but not to the participatory 20. The reflective account you write at the end can become one of your five, as long as it contains nothing that could identify another person. The NMC regulator page lists every revalidation requirement.

Module 6 explains how the NMC screens concerns, how case examiners decide whether there is a case to answer, and what the Fitness to Practise Committee can do. The NMC's guidance on insight and strengthened practice (FTP-16) describes how decision makers look at whether a concern can be addressed, whether it has been addressed and whether repetition is highly unlikely. The NMC uses "strengthened practice" for what other regulators call remediation.

The NMC also says decision makers look at how relevant any training is to the concern. That is why a single ethics certificate is not enough by itself. Use the course as part of a plan:

• Choose the modules that match your concern (consent, confidentiality, candour, records or boundaries) and read them closely.
• Write a reflection using the NMC's structure: what happened, what you thought and felt, what you learned, and what you will do differently. The reflective statement builder follows that format.
• Show change in practice: supervised practice, feedback, audits or a manager's report.
• Add the insight course and the reflective practice course if you need to show understanding in depth.
• Discuss your evidence with your union, the RCN or RCM, or a solicitor before submitting it.

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.

One prompt asks which standard of the Code you will reflect on for revalidation and why, so the work you do here can feed directly into your portfolio.

The NMC Code course is the natural companion, covering professionalism, revalidation, delegation and leadership. For a conduct concern, 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. The remediation pathway adds this nursing ethics course to the pack for NMC registrants.

Use Which course do I need? to narrow it down, or see the course catalogue.