MOHAP Remediation Courses for Healthcare Professionals in the Northern Emirates

Under the federal profession laws, licences are issued by a "health authority". That term covers the ministry itself and any federal or local body that runs health affairs in its own area, so the answer depends on where you work. MOHAP is the licensing body for federal government facilities and for private practice across the Northern Emirates. Its online service for complaints about private facilities lists Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah; complaints about care in Dubai or Abu Dhabi are sent on to the DHA or the DOH.

If you work for Emirates Health Services, remember that it operates federal hospitals but does not issue licences. A concern raised inside an EHS facility may follow an employer procedure as well as a MOHAP one, so ask HR and the legal team which they are using.

Patients, or a guardian, relative or attorney acting for them, can complain online, through the MOHAP app, at a customer centre or by phone. Complainants must be adults of at least 21. A Health Governance Officer then contacts them to clarify the details. Disputes about money or insurance are sent elsewhere, and MOHAP points out that a committee decision can later be used in court.

The liability regulations (Cabinet Resolution No. 40 of 2019, Article 8) add some formalities: an Arabic text or translation, a clear subject and identification of patient and complainant. Until the report is issued, the complainant may change the complaint, add papers or drop it. Because police, prosecutors and courts must forward medical-error matters to the health authority, a file can also begin with them rather than with the patient.

The committee's job is to decide whether your care involved a medical error as Article 6 of Federal Decree-Law No. 4 of 2016 defines it: knowledge gaps that someone at your grade and in your specialty should not have, a departure from accepted standards, a failure to take due care, or negligence. Article 17 gives the main answers, including a known complication with no error behind it, or an alternative method that is still within accepted practice. The committee can examine the patient and relies on the original medical file. It should report, with reasons, 30 days after referral, but extensions are common.

• Fair composition. A member who is related to a party, works under a party, treated the patient for the same problem or advised you about the case must not sit (Cabinet Resolution No. 40 of 2019, Article 12). Object in writing as soon as you know.
• A higher bar for gross error. A gross finding needs a two-thirds vote of members present, and the report has to state the ground used (Article 11).
• Watch every channel. Reports can be delivered in person, by post, by fax or by email (Article 15). The grievance period starts when you are notified, so check all the contact details MOHAP holds.
• Grievance. Within 30 days either party may take the report to the Supreme Committee of Medical Liability, a standing federal committee based at MOHAP, which can confirm, change or set aside the first report (Cabinet Resolution No. 14 of 2020).

The federal system splits the workforce in two, and each half has its own penalty list and appeal path.

Neither law allows a penalty until you have had the chance to give your side, but neither lets you delay a decision by staying away without a good reason. If you are invited to be heard, go, and go prepared.

For pharmacists, the picture is less tidy. Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2024 now governs pharmacy, but the liability regulations still mention the earlier pharmacy law when they deal with discipline. Ask MOHAP, or your lawyer, which article your case uses.

Both federal profession laws give you the chance to state your side before a penalty, and a decision can go ahead without you if you stay away without good reason. Treat the invitation as your best opportunity and prepare for it as carefully as for a written reply.

1. Confirm the arrangements in writing. Which committee, the date and place, the points to be discussed, whether papers can be sent in advance and whether you may bring someone with you.
2. Prepare a short bundle. Your written response, the timeline drawn from the record, any guideline you relied on, and your certificates and reflective accounts, each dated and indexed.
3. Think about language. The liability regulations expect complaints in Arabic or with a translation, so ask whether your own documents should be translated too.
4. Practise three answers. What happened, what you understand now and what you have changed, each in a few sentences you can say without notes.
5. Answer the question you are asked. If you do not know, say so and offer to follow up in writing.
6. Write it up afterwards. Record who attended, what was asked and anything you undertook to do, and send any follow-up by the agreed date.

If the date clashes with a shift or you are unwell, ask in writing for another date before the hearing and give the reason. Simply not turning up is the worst option.

The federal benchmark for professional behaviour is still the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for Health Professionals adopted in 2017 (Ministerial Resolution No. 1448). Both Dubai's 2025 standards and Abu Dhabi's 2024 bioethics guidelines are presented as building on it. Use the version your facility provides, or request the current text from MOHAP, and quote it precisely if you rely on it in a reflection.

Patients are more likely to know the Patient's Rights and Responsibilities Charter (Ministerial Resolution No. 14 of 2021), which hangs on the walls of clinics and hospitals. It promises dignity, privacy, confidentiality and equal treatment, the right to know who is caring for you, full information before giving consent, the right to say no, access to reports and a cost estimate before surgery. When a complaint is about rudeness, poor explanation or feeling dismissed, the Charter is a good lens for reflecting on what the patient went through.

MOHAP also took part, with the DOH and the Sharjah Health Authority, in the national Healthcare Workforce Bioethics Guidelines released in August 2024.

• Short, renewable suspension. While a liability report is outstanding, or other breaches are being looked into, the health authority can suspend a licence in blocks of up to 30 days (Federal Decree-Law No. 4 of 2016, Article 23). This protects patients while facts are established; it says nothing about the outcome.
• Advance notice to MOHAP. Another body that wants to investigate you has to write to the licensing authority first, identifying you, your employer and the issue. MOHAP can attend, put documents forward and must be given the result (Article 22; Cabinet Resolution No. 40 of 2019, Article 16).
• A shield against arrest over clinical error. Article 24 rules out investigation, arrest or temporary detention for a medical error unless the health authority has issued a final report finding gross error.
• Separate disciplinary track. Article 38 keeps disciplinary liability apart from criminal liability, so a good result in a criminal matter does not on its own end a disciplinary file.

The clock runs from notification, not from when you read the message. Fifteen days is very little time if you also need your insurer and a lawyer, so contact them the day the decision lands.

• CME for renewal. MOHAP's service pages list 20 hours for nursing practitioners, 10 for medical and dental technicians, 20 for a pharmacist in charge and 10 for an assistant pharmacist. For doctors the page asks for continuing medical education in the field of the licence but gives no number. None of the pages says whether hours are counted per year or per renewal, so confirm this with MOHAP or your facility.
• Do not let it lapse. Apply at least 30 days before expiry and do not practise on an expired licence. For nurses, midwives and allied professionals, six months without a renewal application, or six months in a row of unexplained inactivity, leads to revocation (Cabinet Resolution No. 176 of 2025, Article 10); doctors have an equivalent six-month rule (Cabinet Resolution No. 67 of 2020, Article 6).
• Good standing. MOHAP will issue a good standing certificate once you have held its licence for three months, and it is valid for six months, but not to anyone with a sentence for a medical offence. The national qualification rules expect good standing to mean no outstanding or past disciplinary orders, so an open file can hold up a licence application in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or overseas. Disclose it.

Your licensing authority decides how any learning counts towards your CPD or a requirement it has set. Each of our certificates shows the title, CPD hours and date of completion.

The federal regulations build the route back around retraining, reassessment and supervision, with different wording for each part of the workforce.

Start a dated log on the day the case opens: what you studied, what you changed, who saw the change. When you reapply, that log is your evidence.

1. Identify the route and the date. Is this administrative or medical, which committee is involved, and when must you reply or attend?
2. Protect the record. The regulations expect every step of care to be recorded with what was done and when (Cabinet Resolution No. 40 of 2019, Article 2). If something must be added, add it as an obvious, dated late entry. Changing an older entry after a complaint can become a new allegation.
3. Speak to your insurer. Cover against medical error claims is compulsory, comes from a UAE-licensed insurer and is paid for by the facility owner (Federal Decree-Law No. 4 of 2016, Articles 25 and 26). The policy and the facility's procedure tell you how to notify; the insurer can help with wording.
4. Align with your facility. In an administrative complaint MOHAP hears from the facility first, so talk to your medical director or quality lead before you write.
5. Build a timeline. Times, people present, what was said and what was noted, keeping what you remember separate from what the file shows.
6. Answer the person, not only the allegation. Acknowledge how the patient experienced the care, and say what you have changed.

An illustrative scenario only; it describes no real case. A physiotherapist at a private clinic in Ajman receives an administrative complaint through MOHAP. The patient says a treatment caused pain, the risks were never explained and the session notes were written days afterwards.

• The route. The letter alleges no error causing harm, so it reads as an administrative complaint. MOHAP has asked the clinic for a written report first, so he speaks to the clinic manager before either of them writes.
• The law. He is an allied health professional, so his penalty list, and the 15 days he would have to challenge a penalty, come from Federal Law No. 6 of 2023.
• The record. The notes were indeed completed late. He leaves them as they are, says so in his reply and explains that week honestly, without excuses.
• The duties. Federal law expects possible complications to be explained before treatment, and Article 8 of the 2023 law makes accurate records a duty for allied professionals.
• Learning and change. He completes Clinical Documentation and Record Keeping and the ethics course for allied health professionals, reflects in writing on the patient's experience, and now finishes his notes before the next patient comes in.
• His reply accepts the gap in the record, describes the consent discussion as he remembers it, clearly labelled as recollection, and attaches dated evidence of the new habit.

The outcome is still for MOHAP to decide. What it now has is an honest account that matches the clinic's, and something concrete to weigh.

MOHAP does not publish a list of remediation courses, and no federal law names one. If training is ordered, for instance as a condition of getting your licence back, do exactly what the order says and check in writing before you substitute anything. If nothing is ordered, a short plan with a clear purpose is more persuasive than a large number of unrelated certificates.

• Start with the process: Facing a Licensing Investigation: The Core Remediation Course, or Responding to a Complaint or Licensing Inquiry if the case has only just begun.
• Address the subject: one or two courses from the concerns table above, plus the ethics course for your licence, whether for nurses and midwives, pharmacists, allied health professionals or doctors.
• Show your thinking: Insight: Understanding and Showing It After a Concern or Reflective Practice and Written Reflections.

Check with your insurer or lawyer before you send anything in as evidence.