Effective Communication for Healthcare Professionals for Health Practitioners facing a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation

What you said and what the other person heard, as best you can now see it; where the communication broke down and why; the standard named from your authority’s own document; the effect on the patient, whānau or colleague in their terms; what you understand now; and what has changed, with evidence and dates. The course treats the response itself as communication, and reflection on why communication broke down has a lesson.

Yes, and the authorities have said what persuades them: feedback from patients and colleagues gathered on purpose through someone else and repeated after an interval; a consultation observed by a supervisor with a written report; a communication skills course with a reflection on what changed; and a practice in which understanding is checked and whānau included. The Medical Council’s first outcomes in 2024/25 included 37 educational letters and 13 referrals for competence assessment, and a competence programme is made of exactly this kind of dated work. No provider is accredited by any Council or Board, and no course decides a matter. What every authority, a Committee and the Tribunal weigh is dated, targeted remediation with reflection that engages your own code — and this course is written to the ground every authority’s standard shares on this subject, so the connection to yours is plain. The Medical Council’s performance assessments ended in competence programmes in seven of eighteen cases in 2024/25, and a competence programme is made of exactly this kind of dated work. Check the wording of any direction with your indemnity insurer, union, professional association or lawyer before you rely on it.

Yes — before anything goes to your Council or Board, a competence reviewer, your employer, a Professional Conduct Committee or the Tribunal. Your indemnity insurer, your union or professional association, or a lawyer should read a response before it is sent. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no course determines the outcome of a matter.

Yes. Disrespectful manner or attitude was a primary issue in 152 complaints to the Commissioner in 2023/24, communication was 32% of the concerns notified to the Medical Council in 2024/25, and every authority’s standard treats respectful communication as a professional obligation. A tone, a remark or a rushed explanation that a patient or a colleague experienced as disrespect is read against it — and the authorities read communication as a skill, so they look for evidence that it has changed.

What was heard is what the authorities read for, and the course opens with that: clarity is measured by the listener, and checking understanding is the habit that shows it. A response that describes what the patient heard, and how the explanation is now checked and adjusted, is what persuades; the course’s second and third sections cover both.

Yes. The authorities read communication with colleagues — respect, handover, escalation, conflict — against the same standard as communication with patients, and the Act requires an employer to notify where a practitioner is dismissed or resigns for reasons relating to competence. The course’s fifth section is communication within teams, and the remediation is feedback from colleagues gathered through someone else and repeated.

As partners in the consultation where the patient wishes. For a Māori patient, communication is partnership under Te Tiriti o Waitangi: whānau and support people included, cultural safety as the patient experiences it, and confidentiality managed while involving family. The course gives whānau and support people lessons in the patient section and the foundations.

Prepared where you could, listened first, acknowledged the emotion, communicated uncertainty as uncertainty, managed your own reaction, and recognised the point at which the conversation had become unsafe or unproductive and paused it. The course’s sixth section is difficult conversations, conflict and uncertainty, and each of those is a lesson.

Written communication is evidence, and the course has a lesson with that title. The record of what was explained, what the patient asked and understood, who was present and what was agreed is what the authorities read beside the patient’s account; a record that shows understanding was checked is strong evidence, and one added after the complaint must be dated as an addition.

This course is communication in general: the foundations, patients and whānau, vulnerable patients, teams and difficult conversations. Duty of Candour is the conversation after something has gone wrong: disclosure, the apology and documentation. Teamwork and Collaboration is the working of the team itself. A practitioner whose concern is how they communicate day to day starts here.

All eighteen. Every authority under the Act includes a communication requirement in its standard, reads communication with patients and with colleagues against it, and can use the competence route or the conduct route. The course reads the Medical Council, Nursing Council and Dental Council standards in their own words and the rest alongside.

The course is 2 CPD hours, self-paced, with twelve months’ access from purchase. The certificate is issued on completion, dated, with the course title and the CPD hours, for a response, a portfolio, a competence programme or your recertification.