The standards of conduct, performance and ethics set out, in general terms, how we expect our registrants to behave.
Registrants must meet these standards at all times and we will use them if someone raises a concern about a registrant’s practice.
We also use them to help us make decisions about the character of professionals who apply to our Register.
Standards of conduct, performance and ethics
These standards are effective from 1 September 2024.
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Treat service users and carers with respect1.1 You must treat service users and carers as individuals, respecting their privacy and dignity.
1.2 You must work in partnership with service users and carers, involving them, where appropriate, in decisions about the care, treatment or other services to be provided.
1.3 You must empower and enable service users, where appropriate, to play a part in maintaining their own health and wellbeing and support them so they can make informed decisions.
Make sure you have consent
1.4 You must make sure that you have valid consent, which is voluntary and informed, from service users who have capacity to make the decision or other appropriate authority before you provide care, treatment or other services.
Challenge discrimination
1.5 You must treat people fairly and be aware of the potential impact that your personal values, biases and beliefs may have on the care, treatment or other services that you provide to service users and carers, and in your interactions with colleagues.
1.6 You must take action to ensure that your personal values, biases and beliefs do not lead you to discriminate against service users, carers or colleagues. Your personal values, biases and beliefs must not detrimentally impact the care, treatment or other services that you provide.
1.7 You must raise concerns about colleagues if you think that they are treating people unfairly, that their personal values, biases and beliefs have led them to discriminate against service users, carers or colleagues, or if they have detrimentally impacted the care, treatment or other services that they provide. This should be done following the relevant procedures within your practice and should maintain the safety of all involved.
Maintain appropriate boundaries
1.8 You must consider the potential impact that the position of power and trust you hold as a health and care professional may have on individuals when in social or personal settings.
1.9 You must take action to set and maintain appropriate professional boundaries with service users, carers and colleagues.
1.10 You must use appropriate methods of communication to provide care and other services related to your practice.
1.11 You must ensure that existing personal relationships do not impact professional decisions.
1.12 You must not abuse your position as a health and care practitioner to pursue personal, sexual, emotional or financial relationships with service users, carers or colleagues.
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Communicate with service users and carers2.1 You must be polite and considerate.
2.2 You must listen to service users and carers and take account of their needs and wishes.
2.3 You must give service users and carers the information they want or need, in a way they can understand.
2.4 You must make sure that all practicable steps are taken to meet service users’ and carers’ language and communication needs.
2.5 You must use all forms of communication responsibly when communicating with service users and carers.
Work with colleagues
2.6 You must work in partnership with colleagues, sharing your skills, knowledge and experience where appropriate, for the benefit of service users and carers.
2.7 You must share relevant information, where appropriate, with colleagues involved in the care, treatment or other services provided to a service user.
2.8 You must treat your colleagues in a professional manner showing them respect and consideration.
2.9 You must use all forms of communication with colleagues and other health and care professionals responsibly, including media-sharing networks and social networking sites.
Social media and networking websites
2.10 You must use media-sharing networks and social networking sites responsibly.
2.11 You must make reasonable checks to ensure information you share is accurate, true, does not mislead the public and is in line with your duty to promote public health, when sharing information on media-sharing networks and social networking sites.
2.12 You must use media-sharing networks and social networking sites responsibly, maintaining professional boundaries at all times and protecting service user/carer privacy.
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Keep within your scope of practice3.1 You must only practise in the areas where you have the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to meet the needs of a service user safely and effectively.
3.2 You must undertake additional training to update your knowledge, skills and experience if you wish to widen your scope of practice.
3.3 You must refer a service user to an appropriate practitioner if the care, treatment or other services they need are beyond your scope of practice. This person must hold the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to meet the needs of the service user safely and effectively.
Maintain and develop your knowledge and skills
3.4 You must keep your knowledge and skills up to date and relevant to your scope of practice through continuing professional development.
3.5 You must keep up to date with and follow the law, our guidance and other requirements relevant to your practice.
3.6 You must ask for feedback and use it to improve your practice.
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Delegation, oversight and support4.1 You must only delegate work to someone who has the knowledge, skills and experience needed to carry it out safely and effectively.
4.2 You must continue to provide appropriate supervision and support to those you delegate work to.
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Using information5.1 You must treat information about service users as confidential.
Disclosing information
5.2 You must only disclose confidential information if:
- you have permission;
- the law allows this;
- it is in the service user’s best interests; or
- it is in the public interest, such as if it is necessary to protect public safety or prevent harm to other people.
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Identify and minimise risk6.1 You must take all reasonable steps to reduce the risk of harm to service users, carers and colleagues, as far as possible.
6.2 You must not do anything, or allow someone else to do anything, which could put the health or safety of a service user, carer or colleague at unacceptable risk.
Manage your health
6.3 You must take responsibility for assessing whether changes to your physical and/or mental health will detrimentally impact your ability to practise safely and effectively. If you are unsure about your ability to do so, ask an appropriate health and care professional to make an assessment on your behalf.
6.4 You must adjust your practice if your physical and/or mental health will detrimentally impact your ability to practise safely and effectively. These adjustments must promote safe and effective practice. Where it is not possible to make these adjustments within your scope of practice, you must stop practising.
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Report concerns7.1 You must report any concerns about the safety or wellbeing of service users promptly and appropriately.
7.2 You must support and encourage others to report concerns and not prevent anyone from raising concerns.
7.3 You must take appropriate action if you have concerns about the safety or wellbeing of children or vulnerable adults.
7.4 You must make sure that the safety and wellbeing of service users always comes before any professional or other loyalties.
7.5 You must raise concerns regarding colleagues if you witness bullying, harassment or intimidation of a service user, carer or another colleague. This should be done following the relevant procedures within your practice or organisation and maintaining the safety of all involved.
Follow up concerns
7.6 You must follow up concerns you have reported and, if necessary, escalate them.
7.7 You must acknowledge and act on concerns raised to you, investigating, escalating or dealing with those concerns where it is appropriate for you to do so.
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Openness with service users and carers8.1 You must be open, honest and candid when something has gone wrong with the care, treatment or other services that you provide, by:
- where applicable, alerting your employer of what has gone wrong and following the relevant internal procedures;
- informing service users and where appropriate carers, or where you do not have direct access to these individuals the lead clinician, that something has gone wrong;
- providing service users and carers with a detailed explanation of the circumstances in which things have gone wrong and the likely impact; and
- taking action to correct the mistake if possible and detailing this action to the service user and where appropriate, their carer.8.2 You must apologise to a service user and their carer when something has gone wrong with the care, treatment or other services that you provide.
Deal with concerns and complaints
8.3 You must support service users and carers who want to raise concerns about the care, treatment or other services they have received.
8.4 You must give a helpful and honest response to anyone who complains about the care, treatment or other services they have received.
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Personal and professional behaviour9.1 You must make sure that your conduct justifies the public’s trust and confidence in you and your profession.
9.2 You must be honest about your experience, qualifications and skills.
9.3 You must take reasonable steps to make sure that any promotional activities you are involved in are accurate and are not likely to mislead.
9.4 You must declare issues that might create conflicts of interest and make sure that they do not influence your judgement.
Important information about your conduct and competence
9.5 You must tell us as soon as possible if:
- you accept a caution from the police or you have been charged with, or found guilty of, a criminal offence;
- another organisation responsible for regulating a health or social care profession has taken action or made a finding against you; or
- you have had any restriction placed on your practice, or been suspended or dismissed by an employer, because of concerns about your conduct or competence.9.6 You must co-operate with any investigation into your conduct or competence, the conduct or competence of others, or the care, treatment or other services provided to service users.
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Keep accurate records10.1 You must keep full, clear and accurate records for everyone you care for, treat or provide other services to.
10.2 You must complete all records promptly and as soon as possible after providing care, treatment or other services.
10.3 You must keep records secure by protecting them from loss, damage or inappropriate access.
What the standards mean for different groups
If you are receiving care, treatment or other services from one of our registrants, or you might do so in the future, the standards will help you to understand how our registrants should behave towards you. The standards will also be helpful if you are a carer.
On the rare occasions that something goes wrong, anyone can raise a concern through our fitness to practise process. We can take action when there are serious concerns about a health and care professional’s knowledge, skills or behaviour.
We use the standards of conduct, performance and ethics to help us decide whether we need to take action to protect the public.
If you are registered with us, you must make sure that you are familiar with the standards and that you continue to meet them. It is important that you read and understand this document. If you are applying to be registered, you will need to sign a declaration to confirm that you will keep to the standards once you are registered.
As a registrant, you are personally responsible for the way you behave. You will need to use your judgement so that you make informed and reasonable decisions and meet the standards. You must always be prepared to justify your decisions and actions.
Making informed and reasonable decisions might include getting advice and support from colleagues, education providers, employers, professional bodies, trade unions or other people. In particular, we recognise the valuable role professional bodies play in representing and promoting the interests of their members. This often includes providing guidance and advice about good practice, which can help you meet the standards.
The standards also apply to you if you are a learner on a HCPC-approved programme. We have published another document, Guidance on conduct and ethics for students, which sets out what the standards mean for you.
Glossary
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Making it clear that you are sorry about what has happened. The HCPC does not regard an apology, of itself, as an admission of liability or wrongdoing.
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Anyone who looks after, or provides support to, a family member, partner or friend.
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A general term to describe the different work that our registrants carry out.
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Other health and care professionals, students and trainees, support workers, professional carers and others involved in providing care, treatment or other services to service users.
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A health and care professional’s behaviour.
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Permission for a registrant to provide care, treatment or other services, given by a service user, or someone acting on their behalf, after receiving all the information they reasonably need to make that decision.
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To ask someone else to carry out a task on your behalf.
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In these standards, this refers to making a formal decision to share information about a service user with others, such as the police.
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To unfairly treat a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people. This includes treating others differently because of your views about their lifestyle, culture or social or economic status, as well as the characteristics protected by law: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
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To pass on a concern about a service user’s safety or wellbeing to someone who is better able to act on it, for example, a more senior colleague, a manager or a regulator.
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The values that guide a person’s behaviour or judgement.
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A health and care professional who is currently practising in their profession.
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To ask someone else to provide care, treatment or other services which are beyond your scope of practice or, where relevant, because the service user has asked for a second opinion.
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The areas in which a registrant has the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to practise safely and effectively.
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Anyone who uses or is affected by the services of registrants, for example, patients or clients.