Nursing Governance Assignment Help
Assignment Help on Nursing Governance
Confidentiality, loyalty and protection of patients has been the three core ethical duties medical practitioners’ and nursing 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.
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As mentioned above, the guidelines are more or less the same as anticipated. It explains the requirements for employers of practitioners, registered health practitioners and education providers to make mandatory notifications that prevent risk of harm to public. A reasonable belief shall be formed that the behavior of the practitioner that his practice is not correct. Moreover it shall be done on sufficient grounds as it may risk the life of practitioners (AHPRA, 2014). The role of Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) is the main body to regulate such notifications as they receive it and refer it to the relevant National Board (AHPRA, 2014).
The law obliges to make a mandatory notification which applies to every practitioner and not only in own health profession of the practitioner (AHPRA, 2014). I considered it to be within my own health profession, but the scope of the guideline is not limited to the one’s own health profession rather includes every health profession. This means that a practitioner is not bound to report his colleagues only and is obliged to report any health practitioner. This ensures full protection as same profession practitioners would not be able to form groups.
There are certain exceptions for health practitioners for mandatory reporting. In case of medico-legal context, the practitioner is exempted to make any notification because of the legal proceeding like in the case of insurance policy. Moreover one cannot notify in case of a treating practitioner in Western Australia or Queensland. A voluntary notification is only possible in that case. Similarly in Queensland, Health Ombudsman Act 2013 (Qld.) prevails which does not consider absence of mandatory notification as a professional misconduct (AHPRA, 2014). National inconsistency makes communication and education difficult for reporting obligations (NSW, 2017). These elements are those which I did not consider and had included. I feel that APHRA should have broader aspect and shall apply to whole of the nation with a single guideline rather than having it different in Western Australia and Queensland.
Moreover, I did not find proper rules and legalities for failure to notify. Where I expected that a penalty and legal cases would be the result, the guidelines do not include such things. Moreover, there is no consequences mentioned for the education providers. I had expected these to be made stricter.
Finally, the mandatory notification guideline would help me in providing better service to the nation. I could report to any medical practitioner in any profession if found reasonable misconduct in their behavior. This would not only help people to get no harm, rather it will encourage practitioners to provide better services to their patients and ensure that there is no risk of harm to the general public. Moreover, I need to be ethically correct in all my conducts so that no one points me out for any of my misbehavior. In case I work at multiple places including Queensland or Western Australia, I shall need to be extra careful while reporting such notifications. Patient confidentiality might also become an issue for seeking mental health treatments as the information of patient and the practitioner are not safe in the mandatory notification. Thus, people might not seek such services and it can affect the wider community.
