Ethics and Professionalism CPD Courses for Nurses and Midwives in Saudi Arabia

The nursing course is built around the shifts nurses actually work. It begins with your grade: what the 2023 scope document says a technician and a specialist each do, and how to respond when asked to go beyond it. It then moves to advocacy, especially when relatives speak for the patient, and to your part in consent: checking understanding, witnessing, and escalating when a patient seems unsure.

Later sections cover confidentiality at the nursing station and on messaging apps, chaperoning and gender preferences, the checks that prevent medication errors, documentation that would stand up in a review, delegation in both directions, and how to raise a concern about a colleague. The final section explains CPD at 20 or 40 hours and how to submit learning to SCFHS.

Each course ends with a 20-question scenario-based assessment with an 80% pass mark, then a certificate and a reflective account template.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council within SCFHS issued the Scope of Nursing and Midwifery Practice in Saudi Arabia in 2023. It ties your scope to your qualification:

"Registered Nurse" or "Registered Midwife" is used as an umbrella term for licensed graduates. Knowing your grade's scope is an ethical issue as well as a legal one: Article 9 of the Law bars work outside one's specialty except in emergencies, and patients rely on you to know your limits.

SCFHS registration lasts two years. At re-registration, the requirements ask technicians for 20 CPD hours and specialists for 40, with an employment letter from the last three months. Renewal can be applied for from three months before expiry, and a late fine applies after 31 days. If hours are short, SCFHS renews for one year once.

Hours from activities SCFHS has already assessed appear in Mumaris Plus automatically. Other learning can be submitted through the Recognition of CPD Hours service (SAR 100, 30 business days), with documents in your name, related to your specialty, in Arabic or English. SCFHS decides how any learning counts towards your registration, including these courses.

A nurse technician needing 20 hours might combine in-service training and a skills workshop with a short block of ethics learning. A sample block: Ethics and Ethical Standards for Nurses and Midwives in Saudi Arabia, Professionalism and Professional Standards for Nurses and Midwives in Saudi Arabia, Communication Course for Patients and Families in Saudi Healthcare, Medical Records and Clinical Documentation Course and Patient Confidentiality and PDPL Course for Healthcare Practitioners. Those five courses come to SAR 1,245, or SAR 1,070 after the five-or-more saving of SAR 175, for 12 hours.

A nurse specialist needing 40 hours has more room: add clinical courses for your area, a quality improvement project or teaching, and choose ethics topics that fit your ward, such as safeguarding on a paediatric unit or candour after incidents in critical care.

Midwives face particular questions about consent and family. The MOH 2019 consent guidelines set adulthood at 18 and require joint consent of a minor and guardian from 15 to 18. On reproductive procedures, the SCFHS Code's text refers to the husband's agreement except in emergencies, while the 2019 guidelines say a capable married woman consents to permanent sterilisation herself and is asked to inform her spouse. Midwives should know which their facility applies.

Midwives also work at moments of high emotion where communication matters as much as skill: explaining an emergency, involving the family without losing the woman's voice, and being honest when something goes wrong.

Midwives also meet the joint consent rule for young women aged 15 to 18, family pressure during labour, and the difference between the Code's text and the 2019 consent guidelines on some reproductive procedures. The nursing course explains each and why you should follow facility policy and record your reasoning.

Gender preferences are a real part of Saudi care, and nurses manage them every day. The SCFHS Code requires kindness and fairness without discrimination, and the Code's chapter on religious rulings recognises that care takes place in a religious context. Dignity complaints often come from small things: a curtain left open, an explanation skipped, a male relative not told what was happening.

Good practice is simple and consistent: explain before touching, offer a chaperone, record who was present, respect stated preferences where safe, and escalate when they cannot be met.

The SCFHS Code asks for necessity, minimum exposure and not being alone with a patient of the opposite sex during examination. In practice that means drawing curtains fully, uncovering only what is needed, offering a chaperone and recording the patient's preferences so the next shift follows them.

• Duties towards patients: treat patients kindly and fairly, explain, and do not abandon a patient during their illness.
• Duties towards colleagues: show respect, avoid criticism in front of patients, raise concerns through proper channels and report a colleague whose condition may endanger patients.
• Duties towards yourself: look after your own health and keep your knowledge up to date.
• Documentation: accurate records, signed and dated, with corrections dated and signed.
• Confidentiality: keep patient secrets, with disclosure only in the limited cases the Code and Article 21 allow.

Nurses meet the Code most often in four places: confidentiality on the telephone and at handover, honest records, respect for colleagues across nationalities, and keeping up to date. Each is covered with ward examples in the nursing ethics course.

1. A doctor gives a verbal order you are not sure about. Repeat it back, record it, and query it if it seems unsafe; your accountability for administration remains.
2. A relative asks you not to tell the patient about a test result. Involve the treating doctor; the patient has a right to information.
3. A colleague arrives for a shift smelling of alcohol. The Code asks you to report a colleague whose condition may endanger patients.
4. A patient's family offers you a gift at discharge. Small tokens of thanks differ from gifts that create obligation; follow your facility's policy.
5. A friend asks you to look up a patient's record. Access without a work reason breaches confidentiality, and health data is sensitive data under the PDPL.

Many nurses in the Kingdom trained elsewhere. The clinical skills transfer; some rules and expectations do not. In your first months, give particular attention to:

• Your category. Check whether SCFHS has classified you as a technician or a specialist and read the 2023 scope for that category.
• Consent and family roles. A capable adult decides for themselves, even when relatives expect to sign.
• Modesty and gender. Same-gender preferences and chaperoning are expected, and patients may ask.
• Prayer, fasting and Ramadan. Medication timing and care planning often need adjusting.
• Language. Use interpreters for important conversations rather than relying on relatives or children.
• Hours for renewal. Technicians need 20 CPD hours and specialists 40 at re-registration.

The nursing ethics course and the nursing professionalism course cover these points with Saudi ward cases.

Beyond the two core courses, nurses and midwives most often add courses on safe medicines, informed consent, documentation, teamwork in multinational teams, safeguarding and dignity in care.

If you are dealing with a medication incident, a 937 complaint or an incident review, the remediation page for nurses and midwives sets out a fuller plan, including the core course on investigations and panels, concern-by-concern guidance and help with a written reflection.

All courses are online and self-paced on any device, with 12 months' access, knowledge checks, a 20-question scenario-based assessment, an 80% pass mark, a certificate of completion and a reflective account template.