Healthcare Ethics Australia
Terms · Australia · Ahpra and the 15 National Boards
The agreement between us
Terms and Conditions
for this website and our online courses for practitioners in Australia
In short
The short version
These terms cover the online courses sold on this site to practitioners in Australia. The parts people ask about most: access runs twelve months from purchase, the certificate keeps its completion date and is not reissued, a repeat purchase is half price within twelve months, and our maximum liability is the price you paid.
Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law cannot be excluded by anything here, and clause 1 says so before anything else does.
The short version is not the agreement. Where it and the numbered text differ, the numbered text is what applies.
Introduction
These terms apply to this website and to the online courses sold on it to practitioners in Australia. Please read them before you buy.
The headings and clause numbers are for navigation and reference only. They do not form part of these terms.
The terms
Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law
Our courses come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies those guarantees. Where any part of these terms would have that effect, it does not apply to you.
Among other things, those guarantees require that our courses are provided with due care and skill and are reasonably fit for the purpose we describe. If we fail to meet a consumer guarantee you may be entitled to a remedy, and for a major failure you may be entitled to a refund. The clauses below about refunds and liability are read subject to this clause and to clause 1.
Buying a course
Each online course is A$200. Prices shown on the site are in Australian dollars and are inclusive of GST where GST applies.
The Bulk Buy Offer is any five online courses for A$850, a saving of A$150, or any ten online courses for A$1,400, a saving of A$600, against the same courses bought individually. A face-to-face course can be added to the ten-course bundle only (clause 27). It is available to individual purchasers only.
Courses are assigned to the account matching the email address used at checkout. Log in with that address to open them.
Access to your course
When you purchase an online course you have access to it in your account for twelve months from the date of purchase.
During that period you may return to the course as often as you wish, including after you have completed it and downloaded your certificate. There is no additional charge for revisiting a course you have already bought.
At the end of the twelve months your access to that course ends. Any certificate you have already downloaded remains yours and is unaffected.
Your certificate
On completing a course you may download a certificate issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses. It records the course title, 2 CPD hours, and the date on which you completed the course. Every course carries 2 CPD hours. How your Board records those hours - as hours, points or credits - is a matter for your Board, and you should confirm it with them.
The completion date on a certificate does not change. Revisiting a course within your twelve months under clause 7 does not produce a certificate carrying a later date, and we do not reissue a certificate with a different date.
Our certificates are issued by us. They are not accredited by Ahpra, by any National Board, or by any other external Australian body. Whether the hours count towards your own registration requirements is a matter for your Board, and you should confirm it with them.
Repeating a course
If you need a certificate carrying a later date - for example because a Board, an employer or a tribunal has asked for recent evidence - you may take the course again by purchasing it again.
Where you purchase the same course again within twelve months of your original purchase of it, the repeat purchase is at half the price then payable for that course. Where the repeat purchase is made more than twelve months after the original purchase, the full price applies. In plain terms: repeat inside the year and you pay half; repeat after the year and you pay full price.
A repeat purchase opens a fresh twelve months of access to that course under clause 6, and a new certificate is issued on completion recording the date you completed it that time.
Organisations: course licences and member discount
We sell to organisations under one of two arrangements. They are separate from each other, they are agreed in writing before any purchase, and we do not offer both to the same organisation. Under a course licence the organisation buys seats and assigns them to named individuals. Under a member discount scheme the organisation is issued a code that lets its members or clients buy courses in their own name at a reduced rate.
Neither arrangement is a subscription. Nothing recurs, nothing renews automatically, and no further amount becomes payable unless the organisation chooses to buy again.
Under a course licence the organisation buys a number of seats at a rate agreed in writing, and chooses which of our online courses those seats open. Only the courses chosen are made available on the organisation account. Rates for both arrangements are quoted against volume and are not published.
A course licence runs for twelve months from the date it is purchased, and seats are assigned within that period. We will tell the organisation administrator before the licence ends which seats remain unassigned. Seats still unassigned when the licence ends expire with it. Where a seat has been assigned before the licence ends, the twelve months of access under clause 19 runs from the date of that assignment and is not cut short by the end of the licence.
A seat is assigned to one named individual. Access to the courses opened on the organisation account runs for twelve months from the date that seat is assigned to that individual, and the individual may return to those courses as often as they wish during that period.
Before beginning a course on a seat provided by an organisation, the individual is shown and must accept a single statement confirming that their completion of that course will be visible to the organisation that provided the seat. Nobody is enrolled on an organisation seat without seeing that statement first.
The organisation administrator can see which seats have been assigned and to whom, which courses have been completed and on what date, and the certificates issued. No other information about an individual is provided to the organisation - not their answers, not their time spent, not how many attempts they made, and nothing about any notification or complaint concerning them.
The half-price repeat at clause 13 does not apply to organisation seats. Where an individual has completed a course on an assigned seat and a certificate carrying a later date is needed, a further seat is assigned at the applicable seat rate.
Where a seat has been assigned and that individual has completed the course and downloaded the certificate, the seat is treated as used. This clause is subject to clause 1.
Under a member discount scheme the organisation buys nothing and commits to nothing. Members or clients buy in their own name on these terms, and clause 6 applies to those purchases as it does to any other individual purchase. The half-price repeat at clause 13 does not apply: a member who wants to repeat a course and hold a certificate carrying a later date buys that course again at the scheme rate, whether or not the twelve months has ended. In plain terms, the scheme rate keeps applying and the half-price repeat does not. We do not tell the organisation who has used the code, which courses they took, or whether they completed them.
The Bulk Buy Offer is available to individual purchasers only. It does not apply to a course licence or to a member discount scheme.
Anyone whose organisation offers either arrangement may instead buy a course individually, in their own name, at the standard price. A course bought that way is not visible to the organisation at all. Nobody has to use an organisation seat.
Refunds and cancellation
If you change your mind about an online course, contact us before you have started it and we will refund it. Once you have completed the post-course assessment and downloaded the certificate the course is treated as delivered.
Face-to-face courses. A face-to-face course is a live, facilitated session via video link on Zoom on a published date: A$1,000 per person, or A$850 inside the Bulk Buy bundle, carrying 5 CPD hours; a private one-to-one sitting is A$500 in addition. The certificate is issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses and emailed after the course; it records the course title, 5 CPD hours and the date of the course, and clauses 11 and 12 apply to it as they apply to an online certificate. The half-price repeat at clause 14 does not apply to face-to-face courses: a repeat sitting is charged at the full course price. If you cancel a face-to-face booking seven days or more before the course date, the fee is refunded less an administration fee of A$100. If you cancel within seven days of the course date, or do not attend, no refund is made and the course is treated as delivered; where non-attendance is caused by exceptional difficulty, tell us and we will consider a transfer to the next published date. Once you have attended all or part of a course, no refund is made. If we have to cancel or move a date, you choose between a full refund and a place on the next published date, and you agree that you have no further claim against us in that event. We may ask a participant to leave a face-to-face course where their conduct disrupts it for others; where we do, no refund is made. This paragraph is subject to clause 1.
Where courses have been bought under the Bulk Buy Offer, a refund of the unused courses is assessed against the number completed, at the single-course price.
This clause and clause 27 do not limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. If a course is faulty, is not as described, or otherwise fails to meet a consumer guarantee, clause 2 applies whatever stage you have reached.
What our courses are, and what they are not
Our courses deliver general knowledge on the topics described. They are not legal advice, not clinical advice, and not advice about your individual circumstances or about any notification, complaint or investigation concerning you.
No course determines or influences the outcome of a notification to Ahpra or a National Board, of an investigation, or of a tribunal matter. We make no claim that completing a course will produce any regulatory or legal outcome. Any provider suggesting otherwise is worth treating with caution.
None of our courses awards a qualification. All are for continuing professional development.
None of our courses is an assessment of your competence, your conduct or your fitness to practise, and we do not issue an assessment of any kind about a participant.
Our courses are written against the same regulatory standards and guidance, so there is some deliberate repetition of content and material between them.
Accuracy of content, and changes to courses
The content on this website, in our emails and in our course materials is compiled carefully and is correct to the best of our knowledge at the date shown. Regulatory guidance changes, and conduct is assessed against the guidance in force at the time it occurred. You should check the current position with Ahpra or your National Board before relying on any statement here in a response, a submission or a remediation plan.
We may update course materials, course duration and CPD hours at any time. Where a course is updated while you hold access to it under clause 6, you get the updated version at no charge.
Your account
Your account is personal to you. Do not share your login. Course materials opened on your account are licensed to you alone.
We may suspend or close an account where these terms have been breached, in particular clause 37 or clause 42. Where we do so and courses remain unused, we refund the unused portion unless the breach involved copying or redistributing our materials. We may also decline to sell a course or a place to any person, or remove a participant from a course, where we reasonably consider it necessary to protect our staff, our other participants or our materials.
What we do not provide
We do not write letters, references, opinions or supporting statements for participants, and we do not correspond with Ahpra, a National Board, an employer, an insurer or a tribunal on your behalf. The certificate is the record of what you completed and when.
Our course facilitators deliver the courses. They do not provide individual advice, supervision, mentoring or peer review.
Prices
We may change the price of any course at any time. A change of price does not affect a course you have already bought, and does not give rise to a claim by a past or future purchaser.
Intellectual property
All course materials, and the content of this website, are our intellectual property or are used by us under licence. You may use them for your own professional development and may quote from them in your own reflective writing with attribution. You may not copy, share, republish, resell or use them to deliver training to others without our written permission.
Feedback and testimonials
Feedback you give us may be used in anonymised form. We will not publish your name, your profession, your location or any detail that could identify you or your case without your express written consent, and you may withdraw that consent at any time.
Limitation of liability
Our maximum liability is the price you paid for the course, and it does not exceed that. Subject to clause 1, and to the extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for all claims of any kind connected with a course - however they arise, whether in contract, in negligence or otherwise, and however many claims there are - is limited in aggregate to the amount you actually paid us for that course. It is capped at that amount and cannot exceed it.
To the extent permitted by law we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, and in particular we are not liable for loss of income, loss of earnings, loss of registration, loss of employment, loss of opportunity, or any outcome of an Ahpra notification, an investigation, a disciplinary process or a tribunal matter.
Nothing in these terms limits our liability for fraud, or for any liability that cannot be limited by law.
Privacy
How we handle personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.
Changes to these terms, and your acceptance
We may change these terms. The date at the top of this page shows when they were last updated. The terms that apply to a purchase are those published when you made it.
By using this website, and by purchasing or taking a course, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy.
These terms incorporate the other policies and notices published on this site. Where any of them conflicts with these terms, these terms apply.
Questions about these terms? Email [email protected]. We reply to every enquiry within 30 days, and usually much sooner.
These courses do not decide your case. Nothing on this site is legal advice, and no course from us or from anyone else determines the outcome of an Ahpra notification, an investigation or a tribunal matter. If you need advice about your own situation, speak to your indemnity insurer, your professional association or a lawyer.
Definitions
Key terms on this page
Plain definitions of the words this page uses. Each one restates a section above rather than adding to it.
- Twelve-month access. The period your access to a course runs, measured from the date of purchase. Inside that period you may return to the course as often as you like, including after completing it, at no further cost.
- Completion date. The date recorded on your certificate. It is the date you finished the course and it does not change. Certificates are not reissued with a later date.
- Half-price repeat. A repeat purchase of the same course within twelve months of the original purchase, at half the price. After twelve months a repeat purchase is full price.
- Consumer guarantee. A right under the Australian Consumer Law that a contract term cannot exclude, restrict or modify. The remedies available are set by that law, not by these terms.
- Course licence. Seats bought by an organisation in a block and assigned to named people. The licence runs twelve months from purchase; a seat runs twelve months from assignment.
- Member discount scheme. An arrangement under which an organisation buys nothing and its members buy in their own name at a reduced rate using a code. It is not a subscription: there is no recurring charge and no automatic renewal.
- Notification. In Australian health regulation, the word for a complaint or concern raised with Ahpra about a registered practitioner. Ahpra publishes guidance for practitioners who have had a concern raised about them. No course from us determines or influences the outcome of one.
Questions about these terms
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to what people actually ask. Each one restates a section above rather than adding to it.
How long do I have access to a course?
Twelve months from the date of purchase. Inside that period you may return to the course as often as you like, including after you have completed it and downloaded your certificate, at no further cost.
Can I get a certificate with a later date?
No. The certificate records the date you completed the course and that date does not change. If you need one carrying a later date, buy the course again — half price within twelve months of the original purchase, full price after.
Can I get a refund?
Contact us before you start a course and we will refund it. Once you have completed the assessment and downloaded the certificate the course is treated as delivered.
Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. If a course fails to meet a consumer guarantee you may be entitled to a remedy whatever stage you have reached.
Do the courses count towards my CPD?
Each course carries 2 CPD hours, recorded on the certificate. The courses are written to Ahpra and National Board standards but are not accredited by Ahpra, by any National Board, or by any other external Australian body. Confirm with your Board how the hours should be recorded.
Will a course affect the outcome of my notification?
No. No course from us or from anyone else determines the outcome of a notification, an investigation or a tribunal matter, and we make no claim that it does. Take advice from your indemnity insurer or professional association before you respond to a Board.
My organisation bought the course for me. What changes?
Access runs twelve months from the day the seat is assigned to you rather than from the day it was bought, and the organisation that provided it can see which courses you completed and when. You are shown a plain statement saying so before the course opens.
If you would rather they knew nothing, buy the course yourself at the standard price instead.
How much can I claim from you if something goes wrong?
Our maximum liability is the price you paid for the course, and it does not exceed that. That cap is subject to the Australian Consumer Law guarantees, which cannot be excluded.
Elsewhere on this site
Related pages
The other documents that govern a purchase, and the courses these terms apply to.
Courses by National Board:
Who reviewed this page
Written and last reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal, MBBS, MRCS, MRCGP, Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics, University of Dundee. Last reviewed . Questions about this page: [email protected].
Certificates are issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses.