Ethics and Ethical Standards for Nurses and Midwives for Nurses and Midwives facing an Ahpra notification, complaint or allegation

The reasoning: which principles were engaged, where they conflicted, which prevailed and why — or who it was escalated to — and what you would weigh differently now, with the principle of the NMBA Code of conduct you fell short of named by you, before the Board names it. The course’s reflection lesson gives the structure: the contributing factors, the incident connected to the codes and the ethical principles, what could have been done differently and why, and the lessons and goals for future practice — specific, honest and future-focused, with Gibbs’, Borton’s or Driscoll’s model to frame it. Insight comes first: owning what went wrong, without defensiveness or blame-shifting.

Yes — before anything is written to Ahpra, the NMBA, a panel, a tribunal, your employer or a health complaints body. Your indemnity insurer, your union (the ANMF or your state branch) or professional association, or a lawyer should read a response before it goes. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no course determines the outcome of a notification.

No provider is accredited by Ahpra or any National Board, and no course decides a matter. What the Board, a panel and a tribunal weigh is dated, targeted remediation with reflection that engages the standard — and this course works through the NMBA Code of conduct topic by topic, from boundaries and confidentiality to open disclosure and your own health, so the connection is plain on the certificate and in your reflective account. Check the wording of any condition, undertaking or direction with your indemnity insurer, your union (the ANMF or your state branch) or professional association or a lawyer before you rely on it.

After an assessment or an investigation the NMBA may take no further action, caution you, accept an undertaking or impose conditions on your registration (section 178), refer you to a panel, or refer the most serious matters to a tribunal (section 193), which can reprimand, impose conditions, fine, suspend, cancel registration and disqualify (section 196). The course describes the process — assessment, investigation, outcome — and shows why nurses and midwives who show insight, take responsibility and engage in remediation are treated differently from those who deflect blame or repeat the behaviour.

Not Ahpra, in either case. In New South Wales the Nursing and Midwifery Council of NSW and the Health Care Complaints Commission manage conduct, health and performance matters between them, and Ahpra does not investigate registered practitioners there. In Queensland every complaint goes first to the Office of the Health Ombudsman, which decides what it keeps and what it refers on to Ahpra and the Board. The letterhead tells you which body has your file, and the same response — the reasoning, the standard, the remediation — is what each of them reads for.

Yes, if you can show the reasoning. Many difficult decisions in nursing and midwifery are a judgement about the balance between benefit and harm, or between a person’s wishes and their safety, rather than a failure to know the principle. What separates a defensible judgement from a breach is whether the reasoning was worked through, discussed and recorded at the time — and whether you escalated when the decision was not yours to make. Name the principle in tension, say how you weighed it, then name the section of the NMBA Code of conduct the concern engages.

No. Some breaches are isolated incidents; others reflect a pattern of judgement, insight or professionalism, and the Board reads a second notification for why the change made after the first did not hold. A response to a second concern is a different piece of writing: it accounts for the first remediation, says why it was not enough, and attaches dated evidence of what is different now.

Care that the person receiving it judges to be safe — the code’s own test, and one the Board applies as the person did, not as the nurse intended. Principle 3 asks for respectful, culturally safe practice and gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ health a section of its own; a decision made on an assumption about someone’s background, a family kept out of a conversation that concerned them, or an interpreter not used when one was needed each engages it. The course’s cultural safety lesson uses the person-judged definition throughout.

It can still be a notification. Confidentiality under Principle 3 does not depend on being on shift — a patient discussed in public, or a post a small community can identify, engages it — and Principle 4 covers conduct outside work that could undermine confidence in the profession. Section 130 of the National Law also requires you to tell the Board within seven days of a serious charge or a conviction that carries imprisonment. The course names discussing patient information in public spaces, and improper use of social media, among the common confidentiality breaches.

The Code of conduct for nurses applies to nursing practice and the Code of conduct for midwives to midwifery practice; they share the same seven principles in four domains, and this page cites them by principle and section so the reference holds for either. If you hold both registrations you are subject to both, and citing the wrong one is easy for a reader to notice.

This course is about the reasoning behind a decision and the ethical breaches a notification names; the Professionalism course is about conduct — communication, records, social media, scope and impairment as behaviour, measured against the conduct sections of the code. A notification that says a decision or a relationship was unethical usually starts here; one that describes how you behaved usually starts there. The two are often taken together.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia sets its own continuing professional development registration standard, and targeted CPD on the subject of a notification is among the remediation the Board and the tribunals recognise. The certificate records the course, the 2 CPD hours and the date, which is what a CPD portfolio needs; how the hours count towards your requirement depends on the standard’s categories, so check them.

The course is 2 CPD hours, self-paced, with twelve months’ access from purchase. The certificate is issued on completion, dated, with the course title and the CPD hours, for a response, a portfolio or your CPD record.