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NURBN1012
AU
Federation University
Just like the other healthcare professionals, nursing practices need to be done in accordance with the complex web of federal statutes and this should reflect their decisions that have been made in an ethically responsible manner. The rapid advances in technologies and medical practices continue to present challenges for nurses and other healthcare professionals in making decisions, especially in the fields where the court and lawmakers haven’t established laws and procedures governing their practices. As such, the nurses need to practice with a lot of caution in all their decision-making tasks to reduce the risks of facing legal liabilities. What’s more, the nurses need to put into consideration the ethical implications of all decisions they need to make o ensure that all their actions are in the interests of all stakeholders in healthcare sector and that they are not likely to engage in any activity that would present much harm to the patient (Kadivar et al., 2017). At glance, nurses need to make decisions that look straightforward, but sometimes, unethical actions could land them in legal problems.
Australia requires that nurses must meet the national registration standards just like other health professionals. Also, these nurses must meet various professional codes, standards and guidelines governing their practice (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016). These standards ensure professional practice are essential since they play the role of articulating nurses’ scope of practice for all the registered nurses. Additionally, professional practice standards clarify the scope of nursing practices for all the nurses. What’s more, the professional practice standards serve as an important aspect of all their communication processes with other healthcare professionals and stakeholders, including the policy makes, consumers and employers.
The professional practice standards for nurses are created and approved by National and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) and this takes place under the umbrella legislation and national registration that should be conducted to all the nurses. Currently in Australia, the national law requires that the registration standards of any particular nurse needs to be based on their professional indemnity, insurance arrangements, criminal history, recency of previous practices, and also the English language skills (Cashin et al., 2016). As a component of mandate in ensuring the contemporary relevancy of nursing standards and their consequential understanding and use by the nurses and midwives, NMBA plays the role of developing and approving the registration standards, ethics & codes of conducts, guides the professional boundaries, and practice standards.
Professional conduct refers to a manner in which a worker behaves while performing in a professional capacity. The general acceptance is that when nurses are performing their duties and conducting their professional affairs, they need to uphold the exemplary standards of their conducts all the time to signify standards and not behaving just like other people from the street. Code of ethics for Nurses in Australia plays an essential role of supporting the Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia. The codes of conduct ensures that minimum standards of practice are observed and so the professionals are expected to maintain these standards both outside and within the professional aspects to ensure better standing of nursing as a profession. All the nursing practices are therefore based on these two companion codes (codes of ethics and code of conducts) and this applies to the wider scopes of research, education, management, and clinical domains.
It is important to remember that codes of the ethics and code of conducts for Nurses in Australia are designed for a number of audiences and these includes the nurses, student nurses and who need to receive nursing care, an also the other healthcare workers.
The code of professional conducts under statement 1 requires that nurses should practice in a competent manner. As such, nurses are required to practice all that they do in good faith. The most touching explanation to this statement is explanation number five that requires the nurses to practice in a safe and competent manner that are not compromised by other health conditions. The explanation also touches on the use of alcohol and other substances that may interfere with the nurse’s capacity to practice in a safe and competent environment through being responsible and seeking assistance to redress some of the health challenges that they face. As such, Amy ought to have made a confidential report to any appropriate authority seeking for help.
Conduct statement 2 of the codes of conduct require the nurses to practice while observing standards governing their profession and the entire health system. The standard creates some sense of responsibility among the nurses in ensuring that the standards of their practices are conforming to the professional standards developed by the board regarding their profession. The statement objectively requires the nurses or student nurses to enhance the safety of their care, and this includes their friends and families. By Amy stealing the sleeping pills for his friends, she goes against this conduct for she is involving her friends in drug abuse.
The main responsibility of the nurses is provision of competent and safe nursing care. Any circumstance such as indulgence in drug abuse or stealing of patient drugs is likely to compromise the professional standards for the nurses, leading to unlawful or unethical practices. Such conducts need to be made known to the appropriate people or authorities such as AHPRA, especially in if such cases have been unresolved and would continue to impact on the safety and competency of the care in provision by the nurse. By Amy being reported by a colleague, it was the best action as provided by the explanation regarding this conduct statement (NMBA, 2018). The colleague to Amy intervened in safeguarding her and after exhausting the internal processes, the appropriate external authority (police in the case study) was notified.
Currently, Health Practitioner Regulation Law (2009) is the National Law that regulates the registration of nurses and other healthcare workers with regards to criminal history and professional practice. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia plays the important role of decision making whether the criminal history of the practitioner is relevant to the nursing profession. The standard applies to all the applicants to be registered as healthcare practitioners.
The first application by a nurse or midwife for registration will prompt the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia to seek applicant declarations of their criminal history whether they are from Australia or overseass. On behalf of the board, AHPRA goes through the criminal history applicant during the registration process and approves the nurses and midwives who match the suitability to practice safe nursing, thus granting them registration in Australia. All the applicants as such, are tasked with the role of informing NMBA if they have ever been charged with any kind of offence that attracts a punishment of 12 months imprisonment or more. Alternatively, the board focuses on whether the applicant has ever been convicted or found guilty of an offense that attracts a punishable imprisonment in Australia or in any other country. The healthcare workers such as midwives and nurses are required to reveal the changes in their criminal history upon renewal of the registration (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2017).
While focusing on the Health Practitioner Regulation Law (2009), the board decides whether the drunk driving by Amy would be relevant to the future practices of her profession. In doing so, the board considers multiple factors.
The board takes into consideration the gravity and nature of the offense and how it would be relevant to the healthcare practice. The board assigns more weight to it if the offense has a greater relevance to the health practice. Secondly, the board focuses on the period of time when the offense was committed by the health practitioner. The much recent offenses like those of Amy would earn greater weight since they were committed on short intervals. The board would also consider if the offense that was committed was charged or still pending. During the time, the board will focus on the nature of criminal information provided and specified either as a conviction, finding of guilt, nonconviction, and pending charges.
The board also focuses on whether a sentence was imposed on Amy’s case. The board is likely to assign greater weight if the punishment on the offense is severe based on the custodial period. The board also takes in consideration the mitigating factors evident during the sentencing of Amy. The board also considers the age of Amy who committed the offense. The board is likely to assign less weight when the offense is committed by practitioners under 18 years of age. Even though the age of Amy is not disclosed, if the offense involves victims under the 18 years of age and vulnerable population, the board may assign greater weight to it (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, No Date). The board will also consider if the offense committed by the health practitioner has been decriminalized. If the offense has been decriminalized, the board is likely to place less weight on since the health practitioner is involved in alleged committing of a crime.
The professional regulatory bodies in Australia for health practitioners include Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) include AHPRA, Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC) and National and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). All these bodies play various roles in regulation healthcare practitioners in Australia.
ANMAC plays an essential role in protecting health and safety of the Australian Community since its one of the independent accrediting authorities for education in nursing and midwifery under Australia’s National Registration and Accreditation Scheme. ANMAC on the other hand has the skills that that would assess Amy in this case. The body is appointed by NMBA and independently accredits nursing and midwifery education. The aims of the Scheme include protection of the public by ensuring that only the registration of suitably trained nurses. The agency also facilitates workforce mobility in various parts of Australia and also enables a responsible and flexible workforce (Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council, 2016).
AHPRA has 5 important regulatory functions in healthcare
The body provides policies and advices the national boards regarding the registration standards, codes, and guidelines essential for Amy to register as a nurse after completing her studies.
AHPRA partners with the national board (NMBA) and ensures would ensure registration of Amy and her colleagues only if they have qualifications and skills required to provide competent and ethical care. The body also plays an important role in managing the registration process of locally, such as the case of Amy who studies in Federation University, Australia. They also conduct student registrations.
The body also plays an essential role in managing the complaints and concerns raised about health and performance. In this case, AHPRA would receive complaints from complaints from Sunny Hills Hospital regarding her conduct of stealing drugs. Also, AHPRA will have to receive notification on Amy’s drunk driving. Except in Queensland and New South Wales, the body manages notifications that are referred to them. They also work with health complaint entities in ensuring that appropriate organizations solve the community concerns (AHPRA & National Boards, 2021).
The body plays the role of monitoring and auditing registered health practitioners and ensuring compliance with the board’s requirements. In the event that Amy would be registering after completing her nursing education, she would be monitored and audited by the board.
The body also works jointly with accreditation organizations, committees and authorities in ensuring that students who graduate are suitable, qualified, and skilled to apply for registration as health practitioners (AHPRA & National Boards, 2021). In this case, AHPRA would work with Federation University to ensure that not only Amy but all nursing students graduate with necessary skills and qualifications.
NMBA plays a critical role of undertaking the functions set by Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. The body is involved in the regulation of nursing and also undertakes the roles that ensure public protection. It has the same 5 regulatory functions as AHPRA since they work in partnership (Nursing and Midwifery Board, 2019)
Nurses among other health practitioners continue to face ethical and legal challenges arising from the implications of the decisions that they make. In improving the safety and competency of nursing in Australia, bodies such as NMBA and AHPRA work in regulating the conduct of healthcare professionals. The main points captured by this paper include professional practice for nurses, the codes of ethics and codes of conducts relevant in Australian nursing, Health Practitioner Regulation Law as the current law that regulates registration of healthcare professionals. Lastly, the paper discusses the roles of various bodies and their regulatory roles and these include ANMAC, AHPRA, and NMBA.
The paper has a similarity index of 15 percent and this is irreducible since it comes from some of the unchangeable words. A smaller percentage of the similarity index touches on the title of the paper and running head. The rest of the terms that contribute to similarity index in this paper include the words like ethical, professional, conduct, and so on.
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