Ensuring Teamwork and Collaboration for Healthcare Professionals

Almost all care is delivered by teams, often across several organisations. When teams communicate well and trust each other, care is safer. When they do not, patients are harmed. The course points out that almost every major UK inquiry, from Bristol and Mid Staffordshire to East Kent, the national maternity investigation and the Thirlwall Inquiry, found poor teamworking, poor communication or a failure to listen at the centre of what went wrong.

This teamwork in healthcare course turns that evidence into practical skills. It takes about 2 hours, including a 15-question scenario test and a reflective account with a personal teamwork action plan, and ends with a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

The course is written for doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, allied health professionals, physician assistants, healthcare support workers, social workers, team leaders and managers in any UK health or care setting. It suits two groups:

• Routine CPD: anyone who wants a structured refresh on handover, escalation and working across professions.
• Addressing a concern: professionals asked to address concerns about how they communicate with or treat colleagues, how they hand over, or how they escalated (or did not escalate) a problem.

If the concern is mainly about communication with patients or complaints, look at the communication and complaints page too.

Tools you can use on your next shift

Module 4 is the most practical part of the course. It covers SBAR for structured escalation, closed-loop communication and read-back, briefings, huddles and debriefs, safer handover, and graded assertiveness for speaking up when a senior colleague may be wrong.

Up to date with UK developments

The course reflects the 2025 NHS Staff Survey, the closure of the National Guardian’s Office, new employment law duties on sexual harassment, Martha’s Rule and the 2026 inquiry reports.

Module 2 sets out what each regulator expects of you as a team member:

The course also covers the Equality Act 2010 and the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023. See the GMC page and the NMC page for revalidation detail, and always check the current version of your regulator’s standards.

Teamwork concerns are about behaviour, so evidence of change comes from colleagues as much as from you. A sensible plan:

1. Complete the course and pass the assessment (12 out of 15).
2. Answer the reflective prompts: the strengths and weaknesses of your teams, a situation where better teamwork could have improved care, and what you would do differently now.
3. Write the personal teamwork action plan the course asks for, with at least three actions and how you will measure progress.
4. Collect evidence over time: colleague feedback, supervisor reports and examples of the tools in use.
5. Use the reflective statement builder to bring it together in your own words.

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.

Teamwork is part of the Clinical Concerns Pack, because handover and escalation failures sit behind many clinical cases. The pack also includes Clinical Competence and Patient Safety, the risk of repetition course, Professionalism in Documentation, Insight, Reflection and Remediation. The clinical concerns page explains the pack. For anything else, browse the course catalogue or try the course finder.