Health Professions Council - Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics for Registrants - "You must not do anything, or allow someone else to do anything, that you have good reason to believe will put the health, safety or wellbeing of a service user ( ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) in danger."

VERY PERTINENT TO ETHICAL PRACTICE AND THE HPC CODE OF PRACTICE - challenging colleagues when the safety and welfare of a child is involved is the RIGHT thing to do.

SEE HIGHLIGHTED SECTION IN 1.

1. You must act in the best interests of service users.

You are personally responsible for making sure that you promote

and protect the best interests of your service users. You must

respect and take account of these factors when providing care or

a service, and must not abuse the relationship you have with a

service user. You must not allow your views about a service user’s

sex, age, colour, race, disability, sexuality, social or economic

status, lifestyle, culture, religion or beliefs to affect the way you

deal with them or the professional advice you give. You must treat

service users with respect and dignity. If you are providing care,

you must work in partnership with your service users and involve

them in their care as appropriate.

THE FOLLOWING SECTION GIVES EDUCATIONAL AND CHILD PSYCHOLOGISTS TO ‘ETHICAL LEGITIMACY’ TO CHALLENGE IN CASES WHERE THEY HAVE AN ETHICAL CONCERN

You must not do anything, or allow someone else to do anything,

that you have good reason to believe will put the health, safety or

wellbeing of a service user in danger. This includes both your own

actions and those of other people. You should take appropriate

action to protect the rights of children and vulnerable adults if you

believe they are at risk, including following national and local policies.

You are responsible for your professional conduct, any care or

advice you provide, and any failure to act. You are responsible for

the appropriateness of your decision to delegate a task. You must

be able to justify your decisions if asked to.

You must protect service users if you believe that any situation

puts them in danger. This includes the conduct, performance or

health of a colleague. The safety of service users must come

before any personal or professional loyalties at all times. As soon

as you become aware of a situation that puts a service user in

danger, you should discuss the matter with a senior colleague or

another appropriate person.

2. You must respect the confidentiality of service users.

You must treat information about service users as confidential and

use it only for the purposes they have provided it for. You must

not knowingly release any personal or confidential information to

anyone who is not entitled to it, and you should check that people

who ask for information are entitled to it.

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The standards of conduct,

performance and ethics

You must only use information about a service user:

– to continue to care for that person; or

– for purposes where that person has given you permission to use

the information or the law allows you to do so.

You must also keep to the conditions of any relevant

data-protection laws and always follow best practice for handling

confidential information. Best practice is likely to change over

time, and you must stay up to date.

3. You must keep high standards of personal conduct.

You must keep high standards of personal conduct, as well as

professional conduct. You should be aware that poor conduct

outside of your professional life may still affect someone’s

confidence in you and your profession.

4. You must provide (to us and any other relevant

regulators) any important information about your

conduct and competence.

You must tell us (and any other relevant regulators) if you have

important information about your conduct or competence, or about

other registrants and health and care professionals you work with.

In particular, you must let us know straight away if you are:

– convicted of a criminal offence, receive a conditional discharge for

an offence, or if you accept a police caution;

– disciplined by any organisation responsible for regulating or

licensing a health or social care profession; or

– suspended or placed under a practice restriction by an employer

or similar organisation because of concerns about your conduct

or competence.

You should cooperate with any investigation or formal inquiry into

your professional conduct, the conduct of others, or the care or

services provided to a service user, where appropriate. If anyone

asks for relevant information in connection with your conduct or

competence, and they are entitled to it, you should provide the

information.

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We can take action against you if you are convicted of a criminal

offence or have accepted a police caution. We will always

consider each case individually to decide whether we need to

take any action to protect the public.

However, we will consider rejecting an application for registration,

or removing you from the Register if you are already registered, if

you are convicted of a criminal offence or accept a police caution

that involves one of the following types of behaviour.

– Violence

– Abuse

– Sexual misconduct

– Supplying drugs illegally

– Child pornography

– Offences involving dishonesty

– Offences for which you received a prison sentence

This is not a full list. We will always look at any convictions or

cautions we find out about, and we have arrangements in place

to be told about convictions and cautions involving registrants.

5. You must keep your professional knowledge and skills

up to date.

You must make sure that your knowledge, skills and performance

are of a good quality, up to date, and relevant to your scope

of practice.

You must be capable of meeting the standards of proficiency that

apply to your scope of practice. We recognise that your scope of

practice may change over time.

We acknowledge that our registrants work in a range of different

settings, including direct practice, management, education or

research. You need to make sure that whatever your area of

practice, you are capable of practising safely and effectively.

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Our standards for continuing professional development link your

learning and development to your continued registration. You also

need to meet these standards.

6. You must act within the limits of your knowledge, skills

and experience and, if necessary, refer the matter to

another practitioner.

You must keep within your scope of practice. This means that you

should only practise in the areas in which you have appropriate

education, training and experience. We recognise that your scope

of practice may change over time.

When accepting a service user, you have a duty of care. This

includes the duty to refer them to others for care or services if it

becomes clear that the task is beyond your own scope of

practice. If you refer a service user to another practitioner, you

must make sure that the referral is appropriate and that, so far as

possible, the service user understands why you are making the

referral.

In some circumstances, a person is entitled to be referred to

another practitioner for a second opinion. In these cases, you

must accept the request and make the referral as soon as you

can.

If you accept a referral from another practitioner, you must make

sure that you fully understand the request. You should only

provide the care or services if you believe that this is appropriate.

If this is not the case, you must discuss the referral with the

practitioner who made the referral and, as appropriate, the service

user, before you provide any care or services.

7. You must communicate properly and effectively with

service users and other practitioners.

You must take all reasonable steps to make sure that you can

communicate properly and effectively with service users. You

must communicate appropriately, cooperate, and share your

knowledge and expertise with other practitioners, for the benefit

of service users.

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8.You must effectively supervise tasks you have asked

other people to carry out.

People who receive care or services from you are entitled to

assume that you have the appropriate knowledge and skills to

provide them safely and effectively. Whenever you give tasks to

another person to carry out on your behalf, you must be sure that

they have the knowledge, skills and experience to carry out the

tasks safely and effectively. You must not ask them to do work

which is outside their scope of practice.

You must always continue to give appropriate supervision to

whoever you ask to carry out a task. You will still be responsible

for the appropriateness of the decision to delegate. If someone

tells you that they are unwilling to carry out a task because they

do not think they are capable of doing so safely or effectively, you

must not force them to carry out the task anyway. If their refusal

raises a disciplinary or training issue, you must deal with that

separately, but you should not put the safety or wellbeing of the

service user in danger.

9. You must get informed consent to provide care or

services (so far as possible).

You must explain to service users the care or services you are

planning to provide, any risks involved and any other possible

options. You must make sure that you get their informed consent

to any treatment you do carry out. You must make a record of

the person's decisions and pass this on to others involved in

their care. In some situations, such as emergencies or where a

person lacks decision-making capacity, it may not be possible for

you to explain what you propose, get consent or pass on

information. However, you should still try to do all of these things

as far as you can.

A person who is capable of giving their consent has the right to

refuse to receive care or services. You must respect this right.  
You must also make sure that they are fully aware of the risks of

refusing care or services, particularly if you think that there is a

significant or immediate risk to their life.

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You must keep to your employers’ procedures on consent and be

aware of any guidance issued by the appropriate authority in the

country you practise in.

10. You must keep accurate records.

Making and keeping records is an essential part of providing care

or services and you must keep records for everyone you treat or

for whom you provide care or services. You must complete all

records promptly. If you are using paper-based records, they must

be clearly written and easy to read, and you should write, sign

and date all entries.

You have a duty to make sure, as far as possible, that records

completed by students under your supervision are clearly written,

accurate and appropriate.

Whenever you review records, you should update them and

include a record of any arrangements you have made for the

continuing care of the service user.

You must protect information in records from being lost,

damaged, accessed by someone without appropriate authority, or

tampered with. If you update a record, you must not delete

information that was previously there, or make that information

difficult to read. Instead, you must mark it in some way (for

example, by drawing a line through the old information).

For the complete code go onto the HPC website.