Remediation courses for Doctors facing a Medical Council complaint, fitness to practise inquiry or allegation of professional misconduct

Start with the nine Core Set courses: the standards you are measured against, through Ethics and Ethical Standards for Doctors and Professionalism and Professional Standards for Doctors, both written to the Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics, and the insight, reflection and remediation a response has to show. Then add the courses matched to the concern in your letter. Take advice before you respond.

All three, at different stages. Since 6 May 2025 the Council’s chief executive officer looks at the complaint first and may assign an Authorised Officer. The Preliminary Proceedings Committee decides whether there is enough cause for further action, and may ask for an undertaking or a consent. A referred complaint goes to an inquiry before the Fitness to Practise Committee, which reports to the Council. The Council decides the sanction; the High Court confirms it.

Yes, in limited circumstances. The Council says interim suspension is possible under section 60 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, and says no more than that about how an application is made or decided. If you receive notice of one, contact your indemnifier or a solicitor the same day, because what you put in writing first shapes everything that follows. The courses can be taken while a suspension is in force.

Yes. Healthcare Ethics Courses issues a certificate for every course, recording 2 CPD hours, the course title and the date of completion, which is what makes it usable as evidence in a response or a remediation plan. Under the Council’s 2025 rules a doctor must complete a minimum of 50 hours of CPD in each scheme year through a professional competence scheme. Ask your scheme how the hours should be recorded.

Access runs for twelve months from the date of purchase. You start immediately, work at your own pace, and there is no schedule to keep to within that period. Finishing a course does not end your access: once you have completed it and downloaded your certificate you can return to the material whenever you wish for the rest of the twelve months, at no further cost.

No. The certificate records the date you completed the course, and that date does not change. Revisiting the material inside your twelve months does not produce a newly dated one. If you need a certificate with a later date because the Council, the Fitness to Practise Committee or an employer has asked for recent evidence, you buy the course again: half price within twelve months of your original purchase, the full €100 after that.

No. No course, from us or from anyone else, determines the outcome of a complaint, a Preliminary Proceedings Committee decision, an inquiry or the Council’s decision on sanction, and a provider suggesting otherwise should be treated with caution. What a course can do is help you build the insight and reflection your response needs, and give you a dated, verifiable certificate to evidence it.

By evidence, not assertion: a written reflection that names the concern, with dated certificates attached. The Council’s Guidance on Sanctions says a doctor may demonstrate insight by providing evidence of their understanding of the problem, and may present evidence about how they have addressed concerns. Structure the response around the four things set out above, from understanding what went wrong to showing you have changed. The Insight, Reflection and Remediation courses address each.

The Council’s 2025 procedures allow the committee to ask a doctor to undertake to be referred to a professional competence scheme, and the Council can attach conditions to registration. Our Ethics, Professionalism, Professional Boundaries and Ethical Boundaries courses are written for remediation and each issues a dated certificate. Whether a course satisfies a particular undertaking or condition is for the Council to decide, so read the wording with your adviser before you enrol.

Yes. There is no registration check and no requirement to hold current registration. The courses are open to doctors who are suspended, who have conditions attached to their registration, who have given an undertaking, or who are working towards restoration to the register, as well as to those with a live complaint. If conditions require something specific, check the wording with your adviser before choosing.

The Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics, 9th edition, is the standard a complaint about a boundary with a patient or a colleague is measured against, and the Ethical Boundaries and Professional Boundaries courses are written to it. Maintaining the boundary is the doctor’s responsibility, not the patient’s or the colleague’s, and that applies to a dual relationship as much as to any other boundary concern. Take advice before responding, and before contacting anyone involved.

A relevant medical disability is a ground of complaint under section 57 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, and the Council has a Health Committee. At the Preliminary Proceedings Committee stage the Council may ask a doctor to consent to undergo medical treatment as a way of concluding the complaint. This page does not describe the Health Committee’s procedure, so ask the Council or your indemnifier how your matter will be handled.

Yes. A doctor who trained elsewhere may be working through an unfamiliar process while responding to a complaint, and the vocabulary differs: a chief executive officer who screens the complaint, an Authorised Officer, a Preliminary Proceedings Committee, undertakings and consents, a Fitness to Practise Committee, and confirmation by the High Court. Since the 2020 Act, a prohibition or restriction on practising in another jurisdiction is itself a ground of complaint.

Yes. Courses are taken privately online at your own pace. We never share participant details with the Medical Council, the Fitness to Practise Committee, an employer, a union or an indemnifier unless you choose to do so yourself. You can complete a course before deciding whether to include it in a response at all; nothing reaches anyone until you attach the certificate to your own submission.