Council or Board notification · All 18 responsible authorities

Ensuring Teamwork and Collaboration for Health Practitioners facing a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation

The allegation concerns how you worked with the team — a colleague, a handover, an escalation, a delegation or a decision taken alone.

Communication — a result, a plan or a risk not passed on to the team
Handover — a handover that missed what the next person needed
Escalation — a concern raised once and left, or not raised at all
Unprofessional — a remark, contempt or bullying towards a colleague
Boundaries — a boundaries breach with a patient or a colleague
Delegation — a task delegated, or done, outside scope
Conflict — a disagreement with a colleague that reached patients
Any other — concern about how you work with colleagues

Facing a concern about how you work with the team — from your employer, the Council or Board, a Professional Conduct Committee or the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal?

Help with a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation starts here. This CPD course helps you remediate — and demonstrate the remediation, with a dated certificate for your written response, your portfolio or a Committee or Tribunal direction.

Buy this course — NZ$200 Bulk buy — any five or ten courses

Immediate access · certificate on completion · twelve months' access

2 CPD hours
Self-paced
Every registered profession
CPD certificate
Bulk buy: any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400

At a glance

Who it is for: Any registered practitioner facing a Council or Board notification, complaint or allegation, an employer’s investigation or a Professional Conduct Committee investigation about how they work with the team — communication, handover, escalation, conduct towards colleagues, delegation or conflict
Authorities covered: All 18 responsible authorities under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, their Professional Conduct Committees and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal
Length: 10 sections, 60 lessons, 2 CPD hours
Format: Self-paced, online, immediate access, twelve months from purchase
Certificate: Issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses on completion, dated, with the course title and 2 CPD hours
Price: NZ$200 · any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400

Certificate issued by Healthcare Ethics CoursesRemediation courses for regulatory processes.

2CPD hours, issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses

10Sections, nine closing with a reflective quiz

58Lessons, plus a post-course assessment

NZ$200One off. Twelve months' access

Who this course is for

An allegation of unprofessional behaviour or conduct in the team

A remark in front of others, a junior corrected with contempt, a refusal to cooperate, a dispute that reached patients, a workplace investigation that has become a notification. The Medical Council’s statement on unprofessional behaviour (2020) names bullying, harassment, rudeness and refusing to work collaboratively, and says such behaviour makes colleagues hesitate to ask for help or raise concerns.

A handover, a delegation or an escalation has been questioned

A handover that did not carry what the next shift needed, a task delegated without the supervision it required, a deteriorating patient escalated once and not again. The Commissioner found a breach where a drain was removed and the nurses caring for the patient were not told — a plan written in the notes and never handed over. The course gives handover, delegation and escalation a lesson each.

You are named in an incident where the error was someone else’s

A team failure in which your part was the handover, the check not done or the concern not raised. The course’s seventh section is teamwork failures, errors and patient safety, with systems thinking and shared accountability, and it shows how to write about your own contribution without taking on the whole.

A colleague, a student or a supervisee has raised how you treated them

A pattern a colleague describes as undermining or bullying, a student on placement who complained, a supervisee who stopped speaking up. The Tribunal has censured a nurse who managed a unit and harassed a caregiver and two student nurses, and barred him from acting as a preceptor for a year; the authorities read conduct towards colleagues against the same standard as conduct towards patients.

Your employer has acted, and the authority may follow

An incident review, a workplace investigation, a performance process, a dismissal. An employer must tell the authority when a practitioner is dismissed or resigns for reasons of competence, and can notify a conduct concern too. The course covers professional conduct during a workplace investigation and the remediation that answers both processes.

Before a Professional Conduct Committee

Members of your own profession and a layperson, with a legal adviser, investigate independently, read your response beside the record, and usually meet you. They can recommend counselling or a review, decide on no further action or conciliation, or lay a charge before the Tribunal.

The concerns this course speaks to

Communication within the team

A result, a change of plan, a risk or a concern that stayed with one person, or was passed on in a way that was not heard. Right 4(5) of the Code of Rights gives every patient the right to co-operation among providers to ensure quality and continuity of services, and the Commissioner finds breaches of it where information did not travel. The course gives verbal and written communication within teams a lesson each, and remediation is communication a colleague can now confirm.

Handover and transfer of care

A patient handed over without the result pending, the plan, the risk, or the thing the next person needed to watch for. In a 2021 decision the Commissioner found a hospital in breach where a drain was removed and the plan to monitor closely was written in the notes but never handed over to the nurses, and recommended a handover policy that covers doctor-to-nurse handover. Remediation is a handover now given in a structured way and confirmed, which a supervisor can observe.

Escalation, once and not again

A concern raised once, not heard, and not raised again; a deteriorating patient not escalated in time; a limit recognised too late. Recognising limits and escalating, and speaking up, each have a lesson, and the authorities read for whether you now escalate until someone acts, and record it.

Respect, undermining and bullying

A colleague humiliated, a junior silenced, a pattern of contempt, a team in which people stopped speaking up. The Tribunal cancelled the registration of a clinical manager who used his position to pressure staff, and the Nursing Council’s Code asks every nurse to work respectfully with colleagues — its 2026 draft names bullying and harassment of colleagues and students in terms. The course treats psychological safety as a patient safety matter.

Professional and ethical boundaries within the team

A boundaries breach with a patient or a colleague: a relationship with a colleague that affected judgement, a supervisor and a junior, remarks or advances to a student on placement, a favour asked that should not have been. The authorities read boundary concerns within a team as conduct, and the course covers professional boundaries and behaviour in its fourth section.

Roles, scope and delegation

A task done outside your scope, or delegated to someone outside theirs; accountability lost between two practitioners who each thought the other had it. The practitioner who delegates keeps accountability for the decision to delegate and for the supervision it needs; the course’s second section is roles, responsibilities and scope of practice, with delegation and supervision as a lesson.

Conflict that reached patients

A disagreement about care that was not resolved, a dispute carried on in front of patients, emotion that became conduct. The course’s sixth section is managing conflict and disagreement, including communicating during disagreement and managing personal emotions, and remediation is a disagreement now taken to the right place, in the right way.

Probity, health and any other concern

An incident report that placed the error elsewhere, an account of a handover the record does not support; conduct in the team that came from exhaustion or a condition not declared. A teamwork concern becomes a probity matter when the account is not true, and the health route exists for the condition beneath it. Any teamwork concern is measured against your own authority’s standard on working with colleagues.

Facing a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.

Buy this course — NZ$200

What the course covers

Ten sections and 60 lessons, with a reflective quiz closing each of the first nine and a post-course assessment at the end.

Section 01

Introduction to Teamwork in Healthcare

Six lessons

Section 02

Roles, Responsibilities, and Scope of Practice

Six lessons

Section 03

Communication as the Cornerstone of Collaboration

Six lessons

Section 04

Respect, Trust, and Professional Relationships

Six lessons

Section 05

Leadership, Followership, and Shared Responsibility

Six lessons

Section 06

Managing Conflict and Disagreement Within Teams

Six lessons

Section 07

Teamwork Failures, Errors, and Patient Safety

Six lessons

Section 08

Complaints, Investigations, and Regulatory Expectations

Eight lessons

Section 09

Reflection, Insight, and Remediation

Eight lessons

Section 10

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Key takeaways and the post-course assessment

Show every lesson title

Section 01 · Introduction to Teamwork in Healthcare: What Is Teamwork in Healthcare?; Why Teamwork Is Essential for Patient Safety; Ethical and Professional Foundations of Teamwork; Teamwork Across Professional Boundaries; Teamwork, Trust, and Public Confidence; Teamwork as a Shared Professional Responsibility.
Section 02 · Roles, Responsibilities, and Scope of Practice: Understanding Professional Roles Within Healthcare Teams; Scope of Practice and Professional Boundaries; Accountability Within Team-Based Care; Delegation and Supervision; Shared Responsibility and Collaborative Decision-Making; Recognising Limits and Escalating Appropriately.
Section 03 · Communication as the Cornerstone of Collaboration: The Role of Communication in Safe Teamwork; Verbal Communication Within Healthcare Teams; Written Communication and Clinical Documentation; Handover and Transfer of Care; Communication Under Pressure and in High-Risk Situations; Speaking Up and Escalating Concerns.
Section 04 · Respect, Trust, and Professional Relationships: The Importance of Respect in Healthcare Teams; Building and Maintaining Trust Within Teams; Psychological Safety and Speaking Up; Professional Boundaries and Behaviour; Managing Disrespect, Undermining, and Bullying; Trust, Professionalism, and Regulatory Expectations.
Section 05 · Leadership, Followership, and Shared Responsibility: Leadership in Healthcare Teams; Leadership at All Levels of Practice; Understanding Followership in Healthcare; Shared Responsibility for Patient Outcomes; Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making; Leadership, Team Culture, and Regulatory Expectations.
Section 06 · Managing Conflict and Disagreement Within Teams: Understanding Conflict in Healthcare Teams; Constructive Versus Destructive Conflict; Communicating During Disagreement; Escalating Concerns Appropriately; Managing Personal Emotions and Professional Conduct; Conflict, Patient Safety, and Regulatory Expectations.
Section 07 · Teamwork Failures, Errors, and Patient Safety: How Teamwork Failures Lead to Patient Harm; Errors, Near Misses, and Learning Opportunities; Systems Thinking and Shared Accountability; Duty of Candour and Team-Based Responsibility; Learning From Complaints, Incidents, and Reviews; Patient Safety and Regulatory Expectations.
Section 08 · Complaints, Investigations, and Regulatory Expectations: How Teamwork Issues Commonly Arise in Complaints; Investigations and the Focus on Team Dynamics; Individual Accountability Within Team-Based Care; Professional Conduct During Complaints and Investigations; Demonstrating Insight Into Teamwork Failures; Remediation and Improvement Following Teamwork Concerns; Supporting Colleagues While Maintaining Accountability; Regulatory Expectations Around Teamwork in New Zealand.
Section 09 · Reflection, Insight, and Remediation: The Role of Reflection in Team-Based Practice; Understanding and Demonstrating Insight; Reflecting on Team Dynamics and Personal Contribution; Developing a Meaningful Remediation Plan; Evidence of Improvement and Behaviour Change; Rebuilding Trust Within Teams; Reflection, Remediation, and Fitness to Practise; Embedding Reflective Practice Into Daily Teamwork.
Section 10 · Conclusion and Key Takeaways: Conclusion; Key Takeaways.

How to respond to a Council or Board notification, complaint or allegation

Every Council or Board, an employer and a Professional Conduct Committee read a teamwork response for the same four things, in order. The course teaches each.

A response that names its own part is read as insight; one that describes the team is read as avoidance.

Your partWhat you did, in the first person: the handover and what it left out, the concern raised and when, the remark, the task delegated — neither taking on the whole team’s failure nor placing your own elsewhere.The course shows how to write your own contribution accurately.
The systemStaffing, the handover tool, the culture, the hierarchy, the pressure — described as conditions, not excuses.The course’s seventh section is systems thinking and shared accountability.
The team and the patientsThe effect on colleagues and on patients, in their terms — the junior who stopped asking, the next shift that did not know — and the standard on working with colleagues, named by its heading.The course reads the authorities’ standards on colleagues side by side.
The changeFeedback from colleagues gathered through someone else and repeated; a handover observed by a supervisor with a report; concerns escalated and documented — dated and confirmable.This course is the dated item you attach — and it names the other evidence.

Team-based care shares responsibility without removing your own accountability.

Take advice from your indemnity insurer, your union or a lawyer before you respond to anyone.

Facing a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.

Buy this course — NZ$200

How this course helps with a Council or Board investigation

Teamwork as a shared professional responsibility: roles and scope, communication and handover, respect and trust, leadership and followership, conflict, failures and patient safety, and the response to a concern.

It works through communication and handover

The role of communication in safe teamwork; verbal communication within teams; written communication and clinical documentation; handover and transfer of care, given in a structured way and confirmed; communication under pressure and in high-risk situations; and speaking up and escalating concerns until someone acts.

It covers respect, trust, leadership and followership

The importance of respect in teams; building and maintaining trust; psychological safety and speaking up; professional boundaries and behaviour; managing disrespect, undermining and bullying; and what the authorities expect. Then leadership in teams and at all levels of practice, followership, shared responsibility for patient outcomes, ethical leadership and decision-making, and team culture.

It handles conflict, failures and patient safety

Conflict in teams, constructive and destructive; communicating during disagreement; escalating concerns; managing personal emotions and professional conduct; and conflict as a patient safety matter. Then how teamwork failures lead to harm, errors and near misses as learning, systems thinking and shared accountability, duty of candour and team-based responsibility, and learning from complaints, incidents and reviews.

It brings it to the complaint, the investigation and the remediation

How teamwork issues arise in complaints; investigations and their focus on team dynamics; individual accountability within team-based care; professional conduct during a complaint; demonstrating insight into teamwork failures; supporting colleagues while keeping your own accountability; then reflection on your own contribution, a remediation plan, evidence of behaviour change and rebuilding trust within the team. Counts: feedback from colleagues gathered through someone else and repeated; a handover observed by a supervisor with a written report; concerns escalated and documented; this course’s dated certificate with a reflection on your own part; an apology made to the colleague. Counts for little: an account of the team that leaves you out of it, an error placed on someone else, a character reference in place of feedback, hours on another subject. For the stages from the first letter to the Tribunal, see the Council and Board investigation process, explained.

Read the primary sources

Who wrote it

Dr Shehzad Iqbal

Course author and facilitator, Healthcare Ethics New Zealand

Dr Iqbal has designed and delivered ethics, probity and professionalism training for healthcare professionals since 2020, working with registrants across regulated health professions, online and face to face. He combines clinical practice with formal postgraduate training in healthcare law and ethics.

MBBS · MRCS · MRCGP · Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics, University of Dundee

Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal. Last reviewed September 2026.

In short

Ensuring Teamwork and Collaboration is a two-hour remediation course, self-paced, for any practitioner facing a notification, investigation, complaint or allegation before one of New Zealand’s 18 responsible authorities. It treats teamwork as every authority’s standard does — a shared professional responsibility — and as a set of practices that can be shown to have changed. It covers the foundations of teamwork; roles, responsibilities and scope of practice; communication and handover; respect, trust and psychological safety; leadership and followership; conflict and disagreement; teamwork failures and patient safety; how teamwork concerns become complaints and investigations; and the reflection and remediation that answer one. Ten sections with a reflective quiz after each of the first nine, a post-course assessment, and a dated certificate from Healthcare Ethics Courses for your recertification. Remediation, not advice: the course decides no matter, and your indemnity insurer, your union or association or a lawyer should read anything before it goes to your authority.

What New Zealand’s Councils and Boards mean by teamwork

A standard in every code, and a right in the Code of Rights. Every authority’s standard under section 118 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 addresses working with colleagues — the Medical Council’s Good medical practice and its statement on unprofessional behaviour, the Nursing Council’s Code principle to work respectfully with colleagues, the Pharmacy Council’s Code of Ethics on cooperation with other practitioners — and Right 4(5) of the Code of Rights gives every patient the right to co-operation among providers to ensure quality and continuity of services. A teamwork concern is read for two things at once: what the practitioner did, and what the system around them did.

Two things are New Zealand-specific. The first is the workplace: a teamwork concern can reach an authority through an employer — after an incident review, a workplace investigation or a dismissal — so the course covers how those processes sit beside the authority’s. The second is partnership under Te Tiriti o Waitangi: a team that works with kaiāwhina, Māori health providers and whānau as partners in care is practising teamwork as the authorities describe it, and cultural safety between colleagues is read as a competence.

What these words mean

The three terms that decide where a matter goes, and the other words the course uses.

Professional Conduct Committee: The committee the Council or Board appoints under s 71 of the Act to investigate a conduct concern: two members of the profession and a layperson with a legal adviser. It asks for your written response, may hear from you, and recommends anything from no further action, through counselling and a competence or health review, to a charge before the Tribunal (s 80).
Professional misconduct: The Tribunal’s ground under s 100 of the Act: malpractice or negligence in your scope of practice, or conduct that has brought or was likely to bring discredit to the profession. Dishonesty, a boundary breach and a breach of confidence are among the findings made under it.
Handover: The transfer of responsibility for a patient between practitioners or shifts, with what the next person needs to keep the patient safe, given and confirmed. A part of teamwork an incident review examines closely.
The three routes under the HPCA Act: Fitness to practise is the phrase practitioners use for the whole process. Under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 the Council or Board takes one of three routes: a competence review (your practice against the required standard); the health process — the Act’s fitness to practise provisions, for impairment by a mental or physical condition; or a referral of your conduct to a Professional Conduct Committee, which can lay a charge of professional misconduct before the Tribunal. Which route your letter names tells you how the matter is being treated.

Team-based care, scope of practice, delegation and supervision, handover, speaking up, psychological safety, followership, systems thinking and the other terms the course uses

Team-based care: Care delivered by more than one practitioner, often across professions, with responsibility shared and accountability kept by each. The setting in which much of New Zealand practice happens, and where teamwork concerns arise.
Scope of practice: The activities a practitioner is registered and competent to perform, as their authority defines it. Delegation to someone outside theirs, or practice outside your own, is a teamwork concern and a competence concern at once.
Delegation and supervision: Handing a task to another member of the team while keeping accountability for the decision to delegate and for the supervision it needs. A lesson in the course’s second section.
Speaking up: Raising a concern about a patient, a colleague or a system to someone who can act, in time, whatever the hierarchy, and raising it again where it was not heard. A professional responsibility in every authority’s standard.
Psychological safety: A team in which a person can raise a concern, admit an error or ask a question without fear of humiliation. The condition under which speaking up happens, and a lesson in the course’s fourth section.
Followership: The part of teamwork that is not leading: supporting a decision, raising a concern about it well, and carrying out a plan with judgement. The course gives it a lesson of its own.
Systems thinking: Reading an error for the conditions that produced it — staffing, handover, design — as well as the person. The way the authorities read a team failure, and the way the course asks you to write about your part in one.
Remediation: Change someone else can confirm: feedback from colleagues gathered through someone else and repeated, a handover observed by a supervisor with a report, a concern escalated and documented, a course with a reflection on what changed, and a team in which trust has been rebuilt.

The provisions a teamwork concern engages

Concerns about how a practitioner works with colleagues arrive as notifications from the workplace, and every authority’s standards have something to say about them. These are the provisions of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 a teamwork concern runs under, and the standards.

Section 34 — notifying a risk of harm

A practitioner who believes another practitioner may pose a risk of harm by practising below the required standard of competence may notify the Registrar, and an employer must notify where a practitioner is dismissed or resigns for reasons relating to competence. A concern about conduct with colleagues can be notified by a colleague or an employer too. Read it.

For this course: A teamwork concern can be notified by a colleague or an employer, and the course explains what such a notification describes.

Section 71 — referral to a Professional Conduct Committee

Where the concern is about conduct the authority refers it to a Professional Conduct Committee — two members of the profession and a layperson, with a legal adviser — which investigates independently and asks for your written response. Bullying, harassment or a refusal to cooperate is a conduct concern and goes this way. Read it.

For this course: A handover, escalation or team-conflict concern goes to a Committee as conduct, and the course explains the referral.

Section 100 — the grounds of discipline

The Tribunal may discipline for professional misconduct, including conduct that has brought or was likely to bring discredit to the profession. Conduct towards colleagues and students is charged on this ground, and the Tribunal has found it in harassment by a nurse who managed a unit and by a clinical manager who used his position to pressure staff. Read it.

For this course: Conduct towards colleagues that brings discredit to the profession is a ground of discipline, and the course explains how it has been applied.

Section 101 — the penalties

Censure, conditions, suspension for up to three years, cancellation of registration, a fine of up to NZ$30,000 and costs. The Tribunal weighs whether the practitioner understands the effect of their conduct on the team and on patient safety, and its orders in team-conduct cases have included a bar on acting as a preceptor and the disclosure of its findings to employers. Read it.

For this course: The Tribunal’s penalties in team-conduct cases weigh pattern and insight, and the course is about the second.

Also engaged: Section 80 — counselling or no further action for a teamwork concern that is understood; a charge where it is not · Section 118 — every authority’s standards address working with colleagues · Medical Council — Good medical practice on colleagues, and the statement on unprofessional behaviour (2020) · Nursing Council — the Code’s principle to work respectfully with colleagues · Pharmacy Council — the Code of Ethics on cooperation with colleagues and other practitioners.

How a teamwork concern moves

A teamwork concern often begins in the workplace and can travel the conduct route or the competence route under the Act, whichever authority registers you.

The workplace: where it starts
An incident review, a colleague’s complaint, a workplace investigation, a performance process. Many teamwork matters are resolved here — by the account given properly, the handover changed, the apology made to the colleague — and an employer must notify the authority where a practitioner is dismissed or resigns for reasons of competence.
The Registrar: conduct or competence, and what has changed?
The Registrar or a delegated committee sorts the notification: behaviour towards colleagues toward conduct, a skill such as handover or delegation toward competence. A response that names your own part, describes the system and shows feedback or supervision already under way can end the matter here with an educational letter.
A competence review
Where the concern is handover, delegation, escalation or working within scope, the authority may review your competence and order a programme, conditions or supervision. Teamwork skills can be shown to have changed: an observed handover, feedback repeated, a course with a reflection.
The health route
Where exhaustion, a short-staffed shift or a condition contributed to conduct in the team, and was declared, the authority may deal with the health matter with support. A declaration made now, with a plan behind it, moves the matter toward it.
A Professional Conduct Committee
Members of your profession and a layperson, with a legal adviser, read your response beside the colleague’s or the employer’s account and meet you. Counselling or no further action can follow a response that sees its own part and its effect on the team; a charge can follow a pattern, harassment, or conduct that endangered patients.
The Tribunal
A legally qualified chair, three members of your profession and a layperson decide whether the conduct meets a ground and choose the penalty. In team-conduct cases it has censured, barred a nurse from acting as a preceptor for a year and cancelled a registration, and it weighs insight, remediation and conduct since the events every time.

Facing a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.

Buy this course — NZ$200

This course is written for every registered profession under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 — the process is the same for all. Ten professions also have Ethics and Professionalism courses written to their own Council or Board’s standard. Find the courses for your profession →

Frequently asked questions

The concern came from my employer, not a patient. Does my Council or Board treat it the same way?

Yes. A teamwork concern can reach an authority through the workplace, and an employer must notify where a practitioner is dismissed or resigns for reasons of competence. The authority reads a workplace notification as it reads any other — for what happened, the standard, and what has changed — and it also reads for the system around you. The course’s eighth section covers how teamwork issues arise in complaints and how investigations look at team dynamics.

Can a teamwork concern be remediated — and will my Council or Board accept this course as part of it?

Yes, and the evidence is the kind other people give: feedback from colleagues gathered on purpose through someone else and repeated after an interval; a handover observed by a supervisor with a written report; concerns escalated and documented; a course with a reflection on what changed; and a team in which trust has been rebuilt. 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. Check the wording of any direction with your indemnity insurer, union, professional association or lawyer before you rely on it.

Should I take advice before I respond?

Yes — before anything goes to your employer, your Council or Board, 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.

The error was someone else’s. Why am I part of this?

Because team-based care shares responsibility without removing individual accountability, and your part — the handover, the check, the concern not raised — is what the authority is asking about. The course shows how to write about your own contribution accurately, without taking on the whole and without placing it elsewhere; systems thinking and shared accountability has a lesson.

I raised the concern. It was not acted on.

Raising it once is the start of the obligation. The authorities read for whether a concern was escalated again, to someone who could act, and documented. The course’s lessons on escalating concerns and on speaking up cover the second and third attempt, and a response that shows you now escalate until someone acts is what persuades.

A colleague has described me as bullying. I was being direct.

How conduct landed is what the authorities read for, and the course opens its fourth section with respect and trust for that reason. A response that can see the colleague’s experience — and shows feedback from the team gathered through someone else since — is read as insight; one that explains the intention only is read as partial.

How does Te Tiriti o Waitangi come into teamwork?

As partnership: a team that works with kaiāwhina, Māori health providers and whānau as partners in care, and in which cultural safety is practised between colleagues as well as towards patients. Every authority sets a cultural safety standard, and the course treats it as part of teamwork rather than beside it.

What should my written response contain?

What happened, in the first person, with your part in it named; what the system around you did; the standard from your authority’s own document, by its heading; the effect on colleagues and on patients in their terms; what you understand now; and what has changed, with evidence and dates. Demonstrating insight into teamwork failures is a lesson in the course.

Does the health route apply to a teamwork concern?

Where conduct in the team came from exhaustion, a short-staffed shift or a condition beneath it, and where it was declared, the authority may deal with the health matter under its health route with support. The course covers managing personal emotions and professional conduct, and a declaration made early, with a plan, moves a matter toward that route.

How is this different from the Effective Communication course, and the Professionalism course?

This course is the working of the team itself: roles, delegation, handover, respect, leadership and followership, conflict, and failures. Effective Communication is the skill of communicating, with patients and whānau as well as colleagues. Professionalism is conduct in general. A practitioner whose concern is about how they work with colleagues starts here.

Which Council or Board is this course written for?

All 18. Every authority under the Act addresses working with colleagues in its standard, reads conduct towards colleagues as conduct, and can use the competence route where the concern is a skill. The course reads the Medical Council, Nursing Council and Pharmacy Council standards in their own words and the rest alongside.

How long does it take, and how long do I have access?

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 or your recertification.

Notifications rarely raise one issue. These are the courses that pair with this one.

Effective Communication for Healthcare Professionals

Communication course for NZ health practitioners facing a notification about manner, omission, honesty, explanation or handover. 2 CPD hours, NZ$200.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200

Documentation for Healthcare Professionals

Clinical documentation and health records course for NZ health practitioners facing a notification about records, late entries or amendments. 2 CPD hours.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200

Duty of Candour for Healthcare Professionals

Open disclosure course for NZ health practitioners facing a notification about non-disclosure, delay, a minimised account or a missing apology. 2 CPD hours.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200

Dealing with a Complaint or Investigation Professionally

Responding to a complaint, notification, competence review or conduct committee in NZ: the first letter, the meeting, what to write. 2 CPD hours.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200

Ensuring Clinical Competence and Patient Safety

When a notification or competence review concerns clinical competence: assessment, diagnosis, deterioration, medication, follow-up and scope. 2 CPD hours.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200

Insight for Fitness to Practise

Asked to show insight after a notification? The staged model, the four components a Council or Tribunal assesses, and what undermines it. 2 CPD hours.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200

Remediation for Fitness to Practise

Remediation after a Council or Board notification: root cause not symptom, SMART goals, the seven parts of a written plan, evidence of change. 2 CPD hours.

2 CPD hours · NZ$200