Clinical ethics and law courses for UK health and care staff

These healthcare law and ethics courses cover the decisions where clinical practice, the law and professional ethics meet: resuscitation and the end of life, consent with children, mental capacity and liberty, mental health law, negligence and liability, giving evidence, research, fair access to care and the use of AI. There are nine courses, each designed to take about two hours, each written for UK registrants across professions, and each explaining where the law differs between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

They are not law degrees. They are practical courses for people who have to make or support these decisions on a shift, in a clinic or in a care home, and who want to know what the law and their regulator actually expect. Every course works from primary sources such as legislation, statutory codes, leading court judgments, NICE guidance and the published standards of the GMC, NMC, HCPC, GDC, GPhC, GOC, GOsC and GCC, and each ends with a written reflective account, a 15-question scenario-based assessment and a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

Healthcare Practise UK is an independent provider. We are not affiliated with any UK regulator or the NHS, and no regulator has reviewed these courses. They support awareness, CPD and reflection; they do not replace mandatory training your employer sets, and they are not legal advice on individual cases.

End of Life Care, DNACPR and Advance Decisions. The ethics and law of end of life decisions: capacity and best interests for life-sustaining treatment, making, discussing and recording DNACPR decisions lawfully, checking advance decisions and powers of attorney, the five priorities for care of the dying person, symptom relief and double effect, and responding to requests to hasten death.

Consent and Confidentiality with Children and Young People. Consent at 16 and 17, Gillick competence and the Fraser guidelines, parental responsibility and disagreement, keeping and sharing a young person's confidence, safeguarding frameworks in each nation, the FGM reporting duty, and mental health, transition and digital care.

Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. The five principles, the capacity test and how to record it, best interests, IMCAs, restraint, attorneys and deputies, the MCA and MHA interface, and deprivation of liberty after the Supreme Court overruled Cheshire West in June 2026.

Mental Health Act Essentials for Non-Specialist Healthcare Professionals. The powers non-specialists meet, including sections 2, 3, 5 and 136, the rights of detained patients, treatment without consent and its limits, choosing between the MHA, the MCA and the common law in a crisis, and the phased commencement of the Mental Health Act 2025.

Duty of Care, Negligence and Medico-legal Essentials. Duty, breach, causation and damage through the leading cases, consent after Montgomery, time limits, claims and indemnity in each nation, inquests and gross negligence manslaughter, and the everyday habits that reduce medico-legal risk.

Writing Witness Statements, Reports and Giving Evidence. The difference between a witness of fact and an expert, reviewing records before you write, structuring an accurate statement, inquests and fatal accident inquiries, and preparing for and giving oral evidence, including cross-examination.

Research Ethics and Good Clinical Practice Awareness. Telling research from audit and service evaluation, research governance and ethical review, Good Clinical Practice, consent in research (including adults who lack capacity and children), research integrity, and recruiting your own patients.

Health Inequalities and Caring for Vulnerable Groups. The social determinants of health and the inverse care law, equality duties and reasonable adjustments, accessible information, inclusion health groups, trauma-informed care, and challenging bias.

AI and Digital Health: Ethics, Consent and Records. The types of AI now used in UK care, risks such as bias, hallucination and automation bias, the regulatory landscape, consent and transparency with patients, reviewing AI-generated documentation, and governance and security.

All nine courses follow the same structure, so you know what to expect.

• Six or seven teaching modules, each with key terms, worked examples, case illustrations and an end-of-module summary.
• Reflection points and "apply it" tasks that ask you to connect the law to a real, anonymised situation from your own practice.
• A references list and quick-reference guide drawn from primary sources, so you can check the current law and guidance yourself.
• A written reflective account to three prompts, saved on your own device and not sent to us.
• A 15-question scenario-based assessment with a pass mark of 12 (80%) and a retake after you revisit the sections linked to the questions you missed.
• A certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

For CPD, record the time you actually spend. Nurses and midwives should note that self-directed online learning usually counts as individual rather than participatory learning for NMC revalidation unless completed with colleagues; doctors reflect on CPD at appraisal; and the other regulators each set their own CPD rules.

Many professionals take two or three of these courses together because the topics overlap, for example the Mental Capacity Act course with the end of life care course, or the negligence course with the witness statement course. You can add any combination to your basket on our course portal and take them at your own pace, with a separate certificate for each course you pass.

If you are addressing a specific concern raised by an employer or regulator, our course bundles by concern group the courses that fit each type of concern, with a short explanation of why each course is included. For larger groups of staff, team credits are usually the simpler option.