Module 1: Introduction

1.1 Course welcome

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course you will be able to:

  • identify your own values and feelings about life-sustaining treatment and how these could influence your approach to decision-making for other people
  • outline key principles from the Mental Capacity Act and spell out how these relate to decisions about life-sustaining treatment
  • recognise an ‘Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment’ and explain the difference between this and a ‘Best Interests’ decision
  • outline the responsibilities of different roles such as Attorney and Deputy, and know how to involve family appropriately in decision-making
  • understand how to draw up a ‘best interests’ balance sheet about serious medical treatment
  • reflect on recent academic research highlighting problems in practice, and have considered ways of identifying and pre-empting such problems
  • reflect on recent court cases and discuss the implications for clinical practice
  • navigate the latest professional guidance from the Royal College of Physicians and the British Medical Association
  • contribute to, or draw up, an action plan to improve best interests decision-making within your team or organisation.

This course will take about 5 hours (or more if you choose to do all the optional activities)

Course schedule

You can work in the way that suits you. Some people work through an entire course over one or two days, others prefer to do 20 minutes at a time over several weeks.  If your employer has arranged for your whole team to do the course refer to the schedule they have organised.

Navigating the course materials

The course consists of a number of modules; these are listed in the course navigation bar (often displayed in the top right of your computer screen, or at the bottom of the unit if you are viewing this on a phone). Each module contains several short units of learning, bite-size chunks to allow for flexible study. Most units can be completed in under 30 minutes.

  • You usually won’t be able to actually go to a unit until you’ve pressed the ‘Mark as Completed’ button on the preceding units. This is because the units are designed to be done in order, but if you want to jump around a bit you can always ‘cheat’ by marking units as completed before you’ve actually completed them!
  • Click on the module titles now to reveal the titles of the units and get an impression of the overall course contents.

Note – a couple of the units overlap with units in our other courses  (‘Communicating with Families’ and “End of Life Care’); that is because not everyone enrols for the entire learning set, and the information presented in these units is key in the context of all three courses.

Saving a copy of course materials

Some learners like to save a .pdf copy of the core materials, or even print out a hard copy. They use this for their CPD portfolio and to help them keep notes. It also gives them something they can refer back to after finishing the course. On most systems you can save a .pdf by opening the relevant learning unit, then selecting ‘print’ from your top toolbar on your computer, and opting for ‘save as .pdf’.

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Continuing Professional Development

Throughout all our course you’ll be invited to complete quizzes, make your own notes on particular questions and carry out some reflective exercises for your learning portfolio. Set yourself up now with a notebook or a folder on your computer to store your reflections as you work through the materials.

Our courses also involve listening to short lectures and films clips, so you’ll need to keep your headphones to hand if you’re planning on doing some study on public transport or in other shared space.

Assessment and CPD certificate

Our online courses are designed so they can be completed via self-assessment with quizzes and self-reflection. A certificate of completion is generated automatically and can be downloaded for your CPD portfolio once you’ve ticked off all the units.

Your first activity

Your very first task before you go any further is:

a) Bookmark cdoctraining.org.uk on your computer, and your phone too, so you can always find it.

b) Note whether you registered with us using your work or your home email.

c) Save the password you set up for your student account on your computer/phone or write it down or email yourself. If you’ve already forgotten  your password then use the email address you registered with to try logging in and then go through the automatic lost password process.

Good, now that you have secured access – read on to learn a bit about the background to this course.

Now mark this unit as ‘complete’ by clicking the green button (bottom right). Then move to the next unit by clicking the purple button at the bottom