ODOB notification · Written to Standards of Ethical Conduct
Ethics and Ethical Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians facing an ODOB investigation, complaint or allegation
The allegation concerns your ethical judgement, behaviour or conduct as an optometrist or a dispensing optician.
- Referral — a sight-threatening sign referred routine, not urgent
- Sales — a second pair or an upgrade sold on a fear
- Certificates — an eyesight certificate signed without the proper checks
- Boundaries — a boundaries breach with a patient or a colleague
- Confidentiality — a record shared with a branch or an insurer unasked
- Consent — a risk, an alternative or a cost not explained first
- Records — notes that don’t show what was tested, or why
- Any other — ethical concern or allegation of unethical conduct
Facing an allegation of unethical behaviour or misconduct like these — from the ODOB, a Professional Conduct Committee or the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal?
Help with an ODOB 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.
Immediate access · certificate on completion · twelve months' access
- 2 CPD hours
- Self-paced
- Written for New Zealand
- CPD certificate
- Bulk buy: any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400
At a glance
- Who it is for
- Any optometrist or dispensing optician facing an Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board complaint, notification or allegation, a Professional Conduct Committee investigation or a competence review about ethical conduct, behaviour or decisions — an allegation of unethical behaviour, conduct or action
- Authorities covered
- The Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board, its Competence Review and Health Committees, its Professional Conduct Committees and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal
- Length
- 10 sections, 65 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.
Who this course is for
Facing an allegation of unethical behaviour or conduct
The Board’s letter says a referral, a sale, a certificate, a record released or a relationship fell short of the Standards of Ethical Conduct. This course is how you account for the decision — which is not the same as defending it — and show you have remediated.
Dealing with an ODOB complaint
The Registrar assesses it the day it arrives — with the Chair and the Board’s professional standards adviser where needed — and asks for your response. The clinical record, the dispensing record and the referral log show what happened, not why; this course gives your response the reasoning the Board reads for.
A complaint with the Health and Disability Commissioner
A complaint about a patient’s care goes to the Commissioner first, and the Board can act to reduce the risk of harm meanwhile. The Commissioner has found optometrists in breach over a missed retinal detachment and a glaucoma referral that came too late, and recommended audits, a written reflection and further training.
Before a Competence Review Committee
Peers review your practice against the standards of clinical competence for your profession, and the Board can require a competence programme — as it did after a missed retinal detachment. A dated certificate, an audit and a reflective account are evidence the Committee can weigh.
Before a Professional Conduct Committee
Two registered practitioners and a layperson, with a legal adviser, investigate independently, read your response and usually meet you. They can recommend counselling or a review, decide on conciliation or no further action, or lay a charge before the Tribunal.
Facing a misconduct charge or hearing before the Tribunal
A charge has been laid, or a penalty is being decided — and the Tribunal has struck off an optometrist who practised without a practising certificate and would not respond to the Board. Remediation completed before the hearing, dated and documented, is weighed every time.
The concerns this course speaks to
Referral, delay and the condition that could not wait
A field defect referred next month, a suspicious disc put on recall, a retinal symptom referred routine instead of urgent because the diary was full. The Standards make referral part of caring for patients, and the Commissioner has found optometrists in breach over a missed retinal detachment and a glaucoma referral that came years late.
The need and the sale
A second pair the patient did not need, a lens upgrade whose benefit was never explained, a frame recommended on margin, a target met at the expense of a need. The Standards say incentives and targets must not affect clinical judgement, and that any personal stake in an option you recommend is disclosed.
The certificate and the driver
A driver-licence eyesight certificate signed without the fields or the acuity checked, for a regular patient who would lose their licence or their independence without it. A certificate states to a licensing agency that an examination was done and a standard met; signed without the proper checks it is a false statement whatever the patient’s actual vision. The course gives the eyesight certificate a section of its own.
Boundaries with patients and colleagues
A patient of years who became a friend or more, a gift accepted, a family member examined and certified, a message after hours, a colleague or a member of staff pursued. The Standards ask you always to maintain professional boundaries, and the Board’s boundaries standard places the responsibility with you.
Confidentiality against the chain, the insurer and the agency
A record shared with another branch or a head office, a file released to an insurer or an employer, a licensing agency that asks, a fundus photograph posted. The Standards ask you to treat patient information as confidential, the Health Information Privacy Code applies, and the Board’s standard on release of patient information sets out what may be shared, with whom and on what consent.
Consent that was not real
An examination, a treatment or a dispensing begun before the purpose, the risks, the alternatives or the cost were explained; a dilation without its effects described; a contact lens fitted without the aftercare discussed; a telehealth refraction whose limits were not stated; consent never revisited when the plan changed. The Standards put respect for autonomy and informed consent at their centre, and consent is a conversation, not a signature.
Records that hold the reasoning
Notes that do not record the retinal examination, the field result or the photographs reviewed, a referral log that does not show the urgency, a record written after the complaint. The Commissioner called one optometrist’s notes “brief, at best”; the record is what a Committee reads first.
Cultural safety and any other concern
A reluctance read as non-compliance, tikanga not asked about, whānau kept out when the patient wanted them there, a subsidy the whānau were not told about. The Standards ask you to understand Māori needs, values and beliefs and to promote equitable access. Any allegation is measured against a domain of the Standards — the course shows you how to find it and answer it.
Facing an ODOB investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.
Buy this course — NZ$200What the course covers
Ten sections and 65 lessons, with a reflective quiz closing each of the first nine and a post-course assessment at the end.
Introduction to Ethics in Optometry and Dispensing Practice
Five lessons
Core Ethical Principles in Eye Care
Six lessons
Professional Boundaries in Optometry and Dispensing
Six lessons
Confidentiality and Privacy
Seven lessons
Informed Consent and Communication
Eight lessons
Ethical Decision-Making in Practice
Seven lessons
Cultural Safety and Ethical Practice in New Zealand
Seven lessons
Ethics in Complaints, Competence Concerns, and Fitness to Practise
Nine lessons
Reflective Practice, Insight, and Remediation
Eight lessons
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
Key takeaways and the post-course assessment
Show every lesson title
- Section 01 · Introduction to Ethics in Optometry and Dispensing Practice
- What is Ethics in Optometry and Dispensing Practice?; Why Ethics Matters in Optometry and Dispensing Practice; Ethical Practice and Professional Expectations; Ethics in Everyday Practice; Ethical Challenges in Optometry and Dispensing Practice.
- Section 02 · Core Ethical Principles in Eye Care
- Respect for Autonomy; Beneficence; Non-Maleficence; Justice; Confidentiality; Professional Integrity and Honesty.
- Section 03 · Professional Boundaries in Optometry and Dispensing
- Understanding Professional Boundaries in Eye Care Practice; Types of Professional Boundaries; Boundary Risks in Optometry and Dispensing Practice; Maintaining Professional Boundaries; Recognising and Managing Boundary Concerns; Professional Boundaries and Fitness to Practise.
- Section 04 · Confidentiality and Privacy
- Understanding Confidentiality in Optometry and Dispensing Practice; Types of Confidential Information; Maintaining Confidentiality in Practice; Consent and Information Sharing; Limits of Confidentiality; Confidentiality Risks in Optometry and Dispensing Practice; Confidentiality and Fitness to Practise.
- Section 05 · Informed Consent and Communication
- Understanding Informed Consent in Eye Care Practice; Elements of Valid Consent; Consent in Clinical and Commercial Contexts; Consent as an Ongoing Process; Communication in Eye Care Practice; Communication in Challenging Situations; Documentation of Consent and Communication; Consent, Communication, and Fitness to Practise.
- Section 06 · Ethical Decision-Making in Practice
- Understanding Ethical Decision-Making in Eye Care; Common Ethical Dilemmas in Optometry and Dispensing; Ethical Decision-Making Framework; Ethical Decision-Making in Commercial Contexts; Seeking Support and Advice; Ethical Decision-Making in Challenging Situations; Ethical Decision-Making and Fitness to Practise.
- Section 07 · Cultural Safety and Ethical Practice in New Zealand
- Understanding Cultural Safety in Eye Care Practice; Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Professional Responsibility; Māori Health Perspectives in Eye Care; Addressing Health Inequities in Eye Care; Communication and Cultural Safety; Cultural Safety in the Clinical and Retail Environment; Cultural Safety and Fitness to Practise.
- Section 08 · Ethics in Complaints, Competence Concerns, and Fitness to Practise
- Understanding Complaints in Optometry and Dispensing Practice; Ethical Responsibilities When a Complaint Arises; Understanding Competence Concerns; Fitness to Practise; Professional Behaviour During Complaints and Investigations; Insight and Reflection in Ethical Practice; Remediation and Ethical Improvement; Preventing Complaints and Competence Concerns; Ethics, Professionalism, and Public Trust.
- Section 09 · Reflective Practice, Insight, and Remediation
- Understanding Reflective Practice in Eye Care; Developing Insight in Professional Practice; Structured Reflective Practice; Writing Effective Reflective Statements; Understanding Remediation in Eye Care Practice; Demonstrating Effective Remediation; Reflective Practice, Insight, and Fitness to Practise; Embedding Reflective Practice in Daily Professionalism.
- Section 10 · Conclusion and Key Takeaways
- Conclusion; Key Takeaways.
How to respond to an ODOB notification, complaint or allegation
The Registrar, a Competence Review Committee, a Professional Conduct Committee and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal all read a response for the same four parts. The course teaches each one.
Three records hold the findings, the sale and the date; your response has to hold the reasoning.
- The obligations in playNamed in the Standards’ words: respect for the patient against the sale, care for the patient against the diary, the community against the person in the chair.The course maps the four principles of health ethics onto the Standards’ four domains, so you can name them in the Board’s words.
- How you decided, and what the patient was toldWhat you found, what was said about need, alternatives and cost, how the referral’s urgency was set and conveyed, and why one obligation prevailed.Weak and strong responses to six New Zealand events show the difference.
- What it cost the patientIn their terms — the sight, the money, the licence, the trust.The course shows how to describe the effect without arguing the complaint.
- What has changedWith dates: a mentor’s or peer’s report, a referral protocol and a certificate protocol in writing, an audit of records, certificates or dispensing after an interval.This course is the dated item you attach — and, for a certificate or a claim, remediation targeted to the lapse.
An acknowledgement followed by “but the target was” reads as the absence of insight.
Take advice from your indemnity insurer, your union or a lawyer before you respond to anyone.
Facing an ODOB investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.
Buy this course — NZ$200How this course helps with an ODOB investigation
Twelve responses to six events from New Zealand eye care
A second pair sold on a fear. A field defect referred a month late. A driver-licence certificate signed without the fields checked. A record shared with a branch without the patient asked. A patient of years who became a partner. A Māori patient examined without whānau. Each event has two responses in the course — the one that closed the matter and the one that went to a Committee. The practitioner who names the domain of the Standards first, does not offer the target or the diary as a reason, and points to something dated is the one who continues.
What a Competence Review Committee or a Conduct Committee will weigh as remediation
Counts: this course’s dated certificate; CPD targeted to the domain concerned; a mentor’s or peer’s written reports; an audit of records, referrals, certificates or dispensing repeated after an interval; a written referral protocol and a certificate protocol; patient feedback gathered for the purpose; Māori-led cultural safety education where the concern engages it; restitution where money is involved. Counts for little: hours on another subject, the head office or the target blamed, an apology for the complaint, and reflection that argues the case. For the stages from the first letter to the Tribunal, see the Council and Board investigation process, explained.
Read the primary sources
- Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 — the Act
- Standards of Ethical Conduct for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians — The standards
- Standard on the maintenance of professional boundaries — Standard
- Standards and guidelines — Standards
- Notifications and competence reviews — Fitness to practise
- Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal — decisions
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 .
In short
Ethics and Ethical Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians is a 2-hour self-paced remediation course for practitioners registered with the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board facing a notification, investigation, complaint or allegation, mapped to the Board’s Standards of Ethical Conduct and its specific standards. It is organised around the three places eye care ethics is decided — the need and the sale, the referral and the diary, the patient and the chain — and teaches the four ethical principles at each, in the Standards’ own words and through Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It works through the eyesight certificate, confidentiality and release of information, consent, informed refusal, scope between the two professions, the condition missed, honesty in records, certificates and claims, boundaries and fitness to practise, with six New Zealand case comparisons. 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: no course decides a matter, and your indemnity insurer, professional association or a lawyer should read anything before it goes to the Board.
Four principles on both sides of one door
Eye care is the health profession in which the person who finds the need is often the person who sells the answer, and the Standards of Ethical Conduct are written for that fact. Their four domains — respect patients, care for patients, work collaboratively with others, contribute to improving the health of the community — carry the four principles the course is built on: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. The consultation that produces a complaint is the one in which the need and the sale, or the referral and the diary, pulled apart.
Three things are eye-care-specific. The door: where a sale follows the sight test, the Standards say incentives and targets must not affect clinical judgement. The referral: eye care is where sight-threatening conditions are first seen, and non-maleficence means the referral sent with the urgency the condition demands, whatever the diary says. The certificate: the driver-licence eyesight certificate sets beneficence to the person in the chair against honesty to the licensing agency and safety on the road.
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.
- Eyesight certificate
- A statement to a licensing agency that an examination was done and a standard met. Signed on findings, an act of justice and honesty; signed without the proper checks, a false statement whatever the patient’s actual vision. The course gives it a section of its own.
- 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.
The four principles, release of information, scope and the other terms the course uses
- Autonomy
- The patient’s right to decide about their eye care on adequate information and without pressure. In eye care: the need explained before the sale, the dilation and its effects explained, the referral and its urgency explained, the refusal respected and recorded. Breached by the sale on a fear and by a refusal treated as non-compliance.
- Beneficence
- The obligation to act for the patient’s sight and wellbeing as they and their circumstances define it, rather than the business’s. The principle tested by the second pair, the upgrade and the plan sized to the target.
- Non-maleficence
- The obligation not to cause avoidable harm by act or omission: the referral sent, the pathology not missed, the contact lens fitted with aftercare, working within scope, not examining while unfit. The principle a Competence Review Committee engages.
- Justice
- Fairness between patients and to the public: attention on need, honesty to the licensing agency and the subsidy scheme, truthful advertising, the same care for the subsidised patient as for the private one. Engaged whenever the target is short and whenever a certificate is signed.
- Release of patient information
- The Board’s standard on sharing a record with another branch, a head office, an insurer, an employer or a licensing agency, and on the consent that release requires, with the Health Information Privacy Code alongside. The standard the chain is measured against.
- Informed consent
- Agreement to an examination, a treatment or a dispensing by a patient who has capacity, has been told what a reasonable person in their position would want to know — the purpose, the effects, the alternatives, the cost — and is free to decline. A patient’s legal right and a Standards expectation; a conversation and not a signature.
- Scope of practice
- The work the register shows each profession may do: an optometrist examines, diagnoses and prescribes; a dispensing optician dispenses and fits. The Board’s standards of clinical competence set the standard the shop floor blurs, and the course treats crossing it as an ethical matter.
The provisions an ethics concern about an optometrist or dispensing optician engages
The Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board publishes its own standards of ethical conduct under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and an ethics notification about an optometrist or dispensing optician is measured against them. These are the standard itself and the provisions of the Act the notification runs under.
Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board — Standards of Ethical Conduct
The Standards of Ethical Conduct for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians — four domains: respect patients, care for patients, work collaboratively with others, contribute to improving the health of the community — read with the Board’s standards on professional boundaries, clinical competence and release of patient information. The document the Board reads your response against. Read it.
For this course: The course maps the four principles onto the Board’s Standards of Ethical Conduct, so that a response cites the standard the Board’s Committee will apply.
Section 71 — referral to a Professional Conduct Committee
An ethics concern about a sale, a certificate, a record released or a boundary is a conduct concern, and is referred to a Professional Conduct Committee of two registered practitioners and a layperson, with a legal adviser, which investigates independently and asks for your written response. Read it.
For this course: An ethics concern about an optometrist or dispensing optician — a prescription sold rather than needed, a confidence, a claim, a boundary — is referred here as conduct, and the course explains what the Committee will look at.
Section 100 — the grounds of discipline
The Tribunal may discipline for professional misconduct — malpractice or negligence, or conduct likely to bring discredit to the profession — among other grounds, and for practising without a practising certificate. An optometrist who did so and would not respond to the Board was struck off. Read it.
For this course: Dishonesty in claims, commercial pressure on clinical decisions and breaches of confidentiality can each reach this threshold in the profession.
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. Insight and remediation are weighed every time, and so is how you dealt with the Board along the way. Read it.
For this course: The Tribunal’s penalty decisions about optometrists and dispensing opticians weigh insight and the evidence of change; the course is dated evidence of the change, and shows how to set out the insight in your own reflection.
Also engaged: Section 118 — the Board sets the Standards a complaint is measured against · Section 80 — what a Professional Conduct Committee may recommend, from counselling to a charge · Section 36 — a competence review where a pattern of decisions, not one, is the concern.
What happens after an ethics complaint reaches the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board
The same stages as any complaint about an optometrist or a dispensing optician. At every one the reader asks whether you saw the ethical question, decided it for reasons you can state, told the patient what they needed to know, and have reconsidered — with dated evidence.
The Registrar triages the complaint, and asks for your response
The Registrar assesses every complaint the day it arrives, with the Chair and the professional standards adviser where needed: what the Board can act on, whether anything is needed while it is looked at, and which route it takes. A complaint about care goes to the Health and Disability Commissioner first.
The route
No further action, a Competence Review Committee, the Health Committee or a Professional Conduct Committee. A defensible decision — a need explained and a pair chosen, a referral sent with the urgency it needed — usually ends on a response that shows the reasoning and the record.
A Competence Review Committee
Peers review your practice against the standards of clinical competence for your profession. The outcome can be no further action, recommendations, or a competence programme — supervision or mentoring, targeted education and review.
The Health Committee
Where a condition may affect your practice, the Committee may require a medical examination and set conditions, accept undertakings or suspend you while you cannot practise — a health process, not a disciplinary one.
A Professional Conduct Committee
Two registered practitioners and a layperson, with a legal adviser, investigate independently, read your response, usually meet you, and recommend anything from no further action, counselling or conciliation to a charge before the Tribunal.
The Tribunal
A legally qualified chair, three members of your profession and a layperson hear the charge, usually in public. An optometrist who practised without a practising certificate and would not respond to the Board was struck off; any order is reviewed against what has changed.
Facing an ODOB investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.
Buy this course — NZ$200Not an optometrist or a dispensing optician? New Zealand regulates 18 professions under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and the process is the same for all — courses for every registered profession →
Frequently asked questions
What does the Board want in a response to an ethics notification?
The reasoning: which principles were engaged, where they conflicted, which prevailed and why, what the patient was told about need, risk and cost, what the effect was, and what you would weigh differently now — with the domain of the Standards you fell short of named by you first. A response that describes only the principle you followed reads as though you never saw the other.
Should someone read my response before I send it?
Yes. Your indemnity insurer, your professional association or a lawyer should see anything before it goes to the Board, a Competence Review Committee, a Professional Conduct Committee, the Tribunal or your employer, and the Registrar’s immediate triage is a reason to seek it early. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no course determines the outcome of a matter.
Will the Board or a Committee accept this course as remediation?
No provider is accredited by the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board, and no course decides a matter. What the Board, a Competence Review Committee, a Conduct Committee and the Tribunal weigh is dated, targeted remediation with reflection that engages the standard — and this course is written to the Standards of Ethical Conduct, so the connection is plain. The Commissioner has recommended audits, a written reflection and further training in optometry cases. Check the wording of any direction with your indemnity insurer, professional association or lawyer before you rely on it.
A referral was delayed because the diary was full and the patient lost vision. What will the Board look at?
Whether the finding was recognised, whether the referral was sent with the urgency the condition demanded, whether the patient was told what the finding meant and what to watch for, and whether the record and the referral log show all of that. The Commissioner has found optometrists in breach where a retinal detachment was referred routine and a glaucoma referral came too late.
I sold a second pair after a sight test and the patient has complained. Was that wrong?
It is the question the Board will ask. Beneficence asks whether the second pair served a need the patient had, and autonomy asks whether the need and the alternative were explained before the sale; a pair sold on a fear, or an upgrade whose benefit was never stated, fails both. The course treats the need and the sale as eye care’s everyday form of the question and shows how a practitioner accounts for a sale that was in the grey.
A regular patient would lose their licence without a certificate and their fields are marginal. What is the ethical position?
The certificate is a statement to a licensing agency that a standard was met, and it is owed to everyone on the road as much as to the person in the chair. Beneficence to the patient does not license a false statement; what it does require is the conversation — what the fields show, what the options are, what the agency can be told. The course gives the eyesight certificate a section of its own.
Our chain shares records between branches and with head office. Is that an ethics matter?
Yes. The Standards ask you to treat patient information as confidential, the Health Information Privacy Code applies, and the Board’s standard on release of patient information governs sharing with a branch, a head office, an insurer, an employer or a licensing agency. A record shared for the patient’s care with their knowledge is one thing; one shared for a marketing list or without the patient asked is another.
The complaint is about a subsidy claim for spectacles. Is an ethics course the right one?
It is one of the two. Probity has its own section here — honesty in records, certificates and claims — and a claim that does not match the dispensing is read as a question of integrity whatever the explanation. The Professionalism course covers the same event from the conduct side; many practitioners facing a claims complaint take both.
Is cultural safety really an ethical standard for eye care practitioners?
Yes. The Standards ask you to understand Māori needs, values and beliefs, to be sensitive to different cultures and to promote equitable access, and the Board’s cultural competence and cultural safety standard applies — who is in the room, how a reluctance is read, and whether a subsidy was explained. A complaint about whānau kept out or tikanga ignored is read as an ethical failure, and Māori-led cultural safety education is the remediation that fits it.
How is this course different from the Professionalism course for optometrists and dispensing opticians?
This course is about the reasoning behind a decision — the need and the sale, the referral and the diary, the certificate, the chain, consent. The Professionalism course is about conduct — the shop floor as behaviour, honesty in records and certificates, boundaries, release of information, scope, advertising. A practitioner whose notification says a decision was wrong usually starts here.
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 your recertification, a competence programme or a response.
Courses that work alongside this one
Notifications rarely raise one issue. These are the courses that pair with this one.
Professionalism and Professional Standards for Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians
Professionalism course for NZ optometrists and dispensing opticians facing an ODOB notification. Written to the Standards of Ethical Conduct. 2 CPD hours.
Financial Integrity for Healthcare Professionals
Financial integrity course for NZ health practitioners facing a billing, fee, ACC or third-party payer concern. Financial consent and conflicts. 2 CPD hrs.
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.
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.
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.
Confidentiality in Healthcare Practice
Confidentiality and privacy course for NZ health practitioners facing a notification or privacy concern under the Health Information Privacy Code. 2 hours.
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.
Start today, finish at your own pace
Immediate access on purchase. Twelve months' access, a dated certificate on completion, and 2 CPD hours issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses.