For Australian registered health practitioners
A notification has been made about you.
This page won't tell you it will all be fine. It will tell you what usually happens, who to call before you do anything else, and where a reflection course fits — if it fits at all.
Free support, independent of Ahpra.
Ahpra's own review of the notification process found that practitioners find it stressful, and that having support through it makes a difference. Everything below is free, confidential, and has no connection to your matter.
Start with your indemnity insurer. Ahpra and the National Boards encourage you to contact your insurer or legal adviser. Most providers run a 24-hour medico-legal advice line that you have already paid for. Use it today.
- Nurse & Midwife Support 24 hours, 7 days · nurses, midwives, students 1800 667 877
- Drs4Drs 24 hours · doctors and medical students 1300 374 377
- Pharmacists' Support Service 8am–11pm AEST, every day 1300 244 910
- RACGP GP Support Program 24 hours, 7 days · GPs 1300 361 008
- Ahpra notifications enquiries Questions about your own matter 1300 419 495
The outcome you are imagining tonight is not the most likely one.
Notifications are frightening partly because nobody tells you the base rates. Here they are.
- 74.9% of all notifications were closed at assessment — before any investigation began.
- 1.1% of all notifications ended with registration being surrendered, suspended or cancelled.
- 90 days is the window within which most notifications are closed.
Source: Ahpra Annual Report 2021/22, Notifications. Figures are for all notifications
nationally; rates for boundary and conduct matters are materially higher.
None of this means your matter is trivial, and none of it is a prediction about your case. It means that the catastrophe you have been rehearsing since the letter arrived is, statistically, the least likely thing to happen.
Including here.
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Your indemnity insurer
Avant, MDA National, MIPS, Guild, or whoever holds your policy. Their medico-legal line is included in what you already pay. They have handled thousands of notifications. Call before you write a single word of a response.
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Your professional association
Your college, union or association has a professional standards team who do this constantly, and many run peer support with practitioners who have been through it themselves.
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A lawyer, if the matter involves conduct, boundaries, or immediate action
Your insurer will usually appoint one. If the notification concerns professional or sexual boundaries, or Ahpra has raised immediate action, do not respond without legal advice.
None of those three is a course. And this course is not a substitute for any of them.
Boards look for insight. Insight has to be shown, not asserted.
When a National Board considers a notification, one of the things it weighs is whether the practitioner understands what happened and has taken steps to address it. Saying so in a response letter is assertion. Structured reflection, completed and dated before the Board decides, is something you can point to.
That is the entire claim we make for these courses. They are not a defence. They will not reduce a finding, close a notification, or persuade anyone of anything by themselves. What they produce is a dated, documented record that you engaged seriously with the standard in question, at a time when you did not yet know the outcome.
Whether that is worth anything in your matter is a question for your insurer or your lawyer. Ask them. If they say it won't help, don't buy it.
What this is
- Self-paced online courses in professional ethics, boundaries, consent and documentation
- A dated certificate issued on completion
- Written for the Australian regulatory context
- Written by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, MRCS, MRCGP
- Usually completed in a single sitting
What this is not
- Accredited by Ahpra, a National Board, or any accreditation authority
- A guarantee, or a prediction, of any outcome
- Legal advice
- A substitute for your indemnity insurer
- Something we are going to tell you that you need
On CPD: whether these courses count toward your registration requirements is a question for your Board. We cannot answer it and will not pretend to.
Start with what the notification is actually about.
An AHPRA notification, an AHPRA complaint and an AHPRA investigation are stages of the same process, and the courses below are grouped by what the matter concerns rather than by your profession. Read the group that matches your letter. Ignore the rest.
Any notification, complaint or investigation
Whatever the subject matter, a Board weighs two things: whether you understand what happened, and what you have done about it. These four address the process itself and those two questions.
- Dealing with a Complaint or Investigation ProfessionallyHow to conduct yourself through an AHPRA investigation without making the matter worse.
- Insight for Fitness to PractiseWhat practitioners are looking for when they search for an AHPRA insight course.
- Reflection for Fitness to PractiseStructured, dated reflection. The AHPRA reflection course equivalent.
- Remediation for Fitness to PractiseAHPRA remediation: what you changed, and how you know it worked.
AHPRA conditions, undertakings or an assessment
If conditions have been placed on your registration, or an undertaking or performance assessment has been proposed, the question has moved from what happened to whether it will happen again.
- Fitness to Practise for Healthcare ProfessionalsOverview of the standards a Board applies. Searched as AHPRA fitness to practice.
- Ensuring No Repeat of Misconduct or Mistake in Future PracticeThe question a Board asks once AHPRA conditions are on the table.
- Rebuilding Trust of Patients, Public and Healthcare RegulatorFor practitioners returning to practice after a finding.
The matter concerns professional boundaries
Boundary notifications end in registration being surrendered, suspended or cancelled roughly four times as often as notifications overall. Do not respond to one without legal advice.
- Professional Boundaries CourseThe AHPRA professional boundaries course most practitioners are searching for.
- Ethical Boundaries with Patients and ColleaguesBoundaries beyond the sexual and financial.
- Social Media Professionalism and BoundariesAn increasing share of notifications begin online.
The matter concerns honesty, probity or money
Probity findings turn less on the original error than on what happened after it.
- Probity and Honesty for Healthcare ProfessionalsWhat people mean by AHPRA probity courses.
- Financial Integrity for Healthcare ProfessionalsBilling, claiming, and conflicts of interest.
- Duty of Candour for Healthcare ProfessionalsOpen disclosure after something goes wrong.
The matter concerns privacy, consent or records
- Privacy, Consent and Chaperone in Healthcare PracticeConsent, examinations, and chaperone arrangements.
- Confidentiality in Healthcare PracticeDisclosure, third parties, and record access.
- Documentation for Healthcare ProfessionalsRecords are the first thing an AHPRA investigation requests.
The matter concerns clinical performance
- Ensuring Clinical Competence and Patient SafetyFor performance-related notifications.
- Prescribing Guidance and StandardsPrescribing is a recurring notification category.
- Effective Communication for Healthcare ProfessionalsA large share of AHPRA complaints begin as communication failures.
- Ensuring Teamwork and CollaborationWhere the notification concerns conduct toward colleagues.
Ethics and professionalism, by profession
Where the notification is general rather than specific, or where you want CPD in your own discipline. These are the AHPRA ethics courses and AHPRA professionalism courses that practitioners search for, written against the code of conduct your own National Board publishes.
Ahpra is a statutory authority. It does not run, endorse, accredit or approve any course, including ours. Where this page uses phrases like "AHPRA insight course", "AHPRA ethics courses" or "AHPRA probity courses", it does so because those are the words practitioners type into a search engine — not because Ahpra has any connection to what we sell.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of Ahpra or any National Board.
They are free, and two of them may mean you don't need a course at all.
- How to Respond to an AHPRA Notification What to do in the first week, and what not to do. Start here.
- What Is an AHPRA Notification? How a notification differs from a complaint, and who can make one.
- The AHPRA Investigation Process Explained What happens between the letter and the decision.
- Knowledge & Support Our full library on notifications, investigations, conditions and fitness to practise.
Immediate access. Certificate on completion. No subscription, no renewal.
Will this help my case?
We don't know, and anybody who tells you they do is selling you something. What we can tell you is what a completed course establishes: that on a particular date, before you knew the outcome, you undertook structured reflection on the standard in question. Whether that carries weight in your matter depends on your matter. Ask your insurer.
Is there an official AHPRA insight course, reflection course or remediation course?
No. Ahpra does not run, endorse or accredit courses, and neither does any National Board. When practitioners search for an "AHPRA insight course" or "AHPRA remediation" course, they mean a course that helps them demonstrate insight and remediation inside an Ahpra process. Ours are written for that purpose. They are not Ahpra's, and anyone implying otherwise is telling you something untrue.
Fitness to practise, or fitness to practice?
Practise is the verb, so a course about your fitness to practise is spelled with an s. Both spellings are searched, and "AHPRA fitness to practice" will find the same courses. Ahpra's own process uses narrower terms — notification, investigation, performance assessment, health assessment, and conditions on registration.
Which course for AHPRA conditions on my registration?
Ask your lawyer or indemnity insurer, because it depends on the conditions. Practitioners typically combine Insight and Remediation with whichever course matches the subject matter of the notification — boundaries, probity, documentation, prescribing.
Are the courses accredited?
No. They are not accredited by Ahpra, by any National Board, or by any accreditation authority. They are aligned to the codes of conduct published by the National Boards. If a provider tells you their ethics course is "Ahpra approved", ask them to show you the approval.
Should I complete a course before or after I respond to Ahpra?
Ask your lawyer or your indemnity insurer. There are matters where completing a course before responding is useful and matters where it is not, and we are not in a position to know which yours is.
How long does a course take?
Most practitioners finish one in a single sitting. You can start and finish today.
Will my employer or the Board see that I did this?
Only if you tell them. The certificate is issued to you. What you do with it is your decision, and one worth taking advice on.
Support, any time —
Lifeline 13 11 14 ·
Beyond Blue 1300 224 636 ·
Nurse & Midwife Support 1800 667 877 ·
Drs4Drs 1300 374 377
In an emergency, call 000.
Healthcare Ethics Courses provides professional education. It is not a law firm, not an indemnity provider, and not a health service. Nothing on this page is legal advice. Our courses are not accredited by Ahpra or by any National Board.