Professionalism and Professional Standards for Nurses and Midwives for Nurses and Midwives facing an Ahpra notification, complaint or allegation

The account, the principle, the effect and the change: the events in order with the chart or the register cited; the principle of the NMBA Code of conduct the conduct fell short of — and the standard for practice for your registration — named by you before the Board names it; what it meant for the person in your care, their family or your colleagues, in their terms; and dated evidence of what is different now — supervised practice with a written report, an audit with a before and after, CPD on the standard itself. Insight is understanding what went wrong, acknowledging the effect and taking personal responsibility rather than moving it, in your own words and about the specific concern.

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 covers the NMBA Code of conduct and the standards for practice beside it, the six categories of professional lapse, and the reflection and remediation the NMBA values, with a dated certificate for your response. 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 sets out the notification pathway — assessment, investigation, the Board’s decision, outcome — and the NMBA’s risk-based approach, whose aim is to protect the public rather than to punish, and says that honest, timely and reflective engagement with the process is essential.

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.

Principle 4, professional behaviour. It sits in the domain act with professional integrity, and its value statement is that nurses embody integrity, honesty, respect and compassion; the guidance beneath it covers boundaries (4.1), conflicts of interest and gifts, and conduct that could undermine confidence in the profession. If the letter uses the word professionalism without narrowing it, Principle 4 is where to look first — then check whether the concern also engages Principle 1 on legal compliance, Principle 3 on respectful relationships and confidentiality, or Principle 7 on your own health. The course sets out the code’s core domains as behaviour expected of you, professional behaviour among them.

No. The code describes how you must behave; the standards for practice — separate NMBA documents for registered nurses, enrolled nurses, midwives and nurse practitioners — describe what competent practice in your role looks like. Section 2.1 of the NMBA Code of conduct requires you to practise in accordance with the standards of the profession, so a professionalism response engages both: the principle from the code, and the standard that matches your registration. A response that cites only the code has answered half the question, and the course names the standards for practice beside the code.

Often, yes. A scope question arrives as a professionalism concern because the issue is judgement rather than knowledge: whether you recognised the limit, whether you sought help and whether you escalated when the decision was not yours to make. Section 1.1 also ties scope to medication practice, requiring compliance with poisons legislation, authorisation, local policy and your own scope, and the standards for practice for your registration say what the scope is. The response names the limit, says what you did when you reached it, and shows the scope conversation with your manager recorded in writing.

Because the NMBA Code of conduct treats medication practice as a legal-compliance matter as well as a clinical one. Section 1.1 requires compliance with poisons legislation, authorisation, local policy and scope when using, administering, obtaining, possessing, prescribing, selling, supplying or storing medications, and what follows the error — disclosure under 2.4, documentation, escalation, the incident report — is assessed under Principles 2 and 4 as closely as the error itself. A correction made openly and reported is an error handled properly; a chart altered so the omission cannot be seen is an integrity matter.

Whichever matches your registration, and if you hold both you are subject to both. The NMBA publishes a separate Code of conduct for nurses and Code of conduct for midwives; both took effect on 1 March 2018 and share the same seven principles in four domains, so this page cites them by principle and section and the reference holds for either. The Code of conduct for nurses applies to enrolled nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners alike; what differs by registration is the standards for practice beside it. A response that cites the wrong document is an easy thing for a reader to notice.

Concrete and evidenced, and begun before the outcome is known. Supervised practice with a named supervisor and a written report; a documentation or medication audit with a before and after; a scope conversation with your manager recorded in writing; feedback from patients and colleagues gathered on purpose; CPD chosen for the specific concern rather than for hours, this course’s dated certificate among it; and a reflective statement that cites the code by principle. Counts for little: an apology followed by “but the ward was”, a character reference in place of an account, and a promise where evidence should be.

This course is about conduct — the behaviours the code requires of nurses and midwives, the breaches a notification describes, what follows a breach and the remediation the Board recognises. The Ethics course is about the reasoning behind a decision and what to do when two principles conflict. If a notification describes how you behaved, start here; if it says a decision or a relationship was unethical, start there. The two can be 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.