The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (the National Board) has released a suite of documents today that will come into effect from mid-March 2014.
The documents contain important information for the nursing and midwifery professions and are the:
- revised Guidelines for advertising regulated health services
- revised Guidelines for mandatory notifications, and
- new Social media policy.
Registered nurses, midwives and enrolled nurses need to familiarise themselves with this guidance to ensure their practice meets National Board expectations from mid-March, when the documents come into effect.
The guidelines and Social media policy are common across all National Boards and apply to all health practitioners registered under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (the National Scheme).
The documents are the result of a scheduled review three years into the National Scheme and are the first set of revised documents to be released this year, with more to come later in 2014.
Presiding Member of the National Board, Dr Lynette Cusack, said the Nursing and Midwifery Board, together with other National Boards, consulted widely late last year on the draft versions of the new guidelines and the Social media policy.
‘We have an ongoing focus on best practice regulation in the public interest, and in public protection,’ Dr Cusack said.
‘The experiences from the first three years of the National Scheme were applied when these documents were being reviewed to make sure that they are clear and make it easier for nurses and midwives to understand their obligations and for members of the community to understand what is expected of the nursing and midwifery professions.’
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) Chief Executive Officer, Mr Martin Fletcher, said the decision was made to publish the documents now to help practitioners, employers and members of the community understand what National Boards expect from practitioners.
‘It’s important that practitioners know and understand their obligations. By publishing these documents five weeks before they come into effect, practitioners, in particular, can start to be ready for when they come into effect in mid-March,’ Mr Fletcher said.
The documents are available on the APHRA website.
