NURS20160 Report On Nursing Governance

Confidentiality, loyalty and protection of patients has been the three core ethical duties medical practitioners’ are bound to (Markel, 2004). It has become a legal obligation in Australia since 2010 that health practitioners shall notify the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) if they have formed a reasonable belief that another health practitioner has practiced while intoxicated, departed from professional standards significantly, engaged in sexual conduct or placed the public at risk of harm (substantial) because of an impairment. This is to protect the public interests, ensuring practice by professional competently and ethically (Bismark et al., 2016). 

According to me, thee mandatory notification guideline shall law cover three major parties being employers, practitioners and education providers who need to mandatorily notify so that the risk of harm to the public is prevented. It shall help these stakeholders in understanding how to work, when and whether they need to notify AHPRA about the conduct of a practitioner. Terms such as ‘public’, ‘reasonable belief’ and ‘impairment’ shall be clearly defined as they would provide a clearer meaning to the overall context of the guidelines. For instance, reasonable belief shall be based on reasonable grounds and shall not just be a state of mind. Similarly, other definitions would make the context clearer and easier to understand. The reporting shall be a part of National Law and is an important policy change, however, the duties encompassing should be mostly consistent with professional obligations and general ethical practice. A broader scope of ethical framework shall be considered for the professionals which shall include professional code of conduct for mandatory notification. Moreover, such guideline shall also be in compliance with the code of ethics in Australia and NMBA’s Nurse practitioner standards for practice 

The guideline shall cover whole of Australia so that public of all over the country is protected. Moreover, according to me mandatory notification for education providers will mean to report a student in case of an impairment is seen which may be harmful to the public. The consequences of failure to notify shall also be clearly defined and penalties for the same shall be mentioned. For every stakeholder involved in making the mandatory notification, actions and penalty amount shall be stated. This will help the lawmakers getting more genuine responses and would encourage the stakeholders to remain ethical as failure to do so might arise issues for them. 

Working as disability support worker in Australia, I need to fully understand the guidelines for mandatory notification. This is because if my colleague or any health practitioner conducting practices that are under legal obligation and have reasonable belief that he is not doing right shall be reported to AHPRA. This is to ensure public safety and their protection. Also failure to doing so might harm my profession with penalties and other legal charges. However, working as a disability support worker and seeking to get job as a mental health nurse might also at a time demand me to teach students where I would be able to accurately understand the impaired students and would notify the same.