Revised registration standards and standards for practice published today

01 Feb 2016

Revised registration standards and standards for practice have been published today by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), which regulates Australia’s 370,303 enrolled nurses, registered nurses and midwives.

The NMBA is releasing the revised registration standards for continuing professional development (CPD), recency of practice, professional indemnity insurance (PII) arrangements and the Registered nurse standards for practice to give enrolled nurses, registered nurses, midwives, employers and the public time to understand the updated requirements set by the NMBA.

The revised registration standards come into effect on 1 June 2016 and will replace the registration standards that are currently in place. All nurses and midwives will need to meet the obligations of the revised registration standards by the next registration renewal period in May 2017. They do not apply to renewals of registration in 2016.

Key changes

Continuing professional development

• Clarity has been provided about the requirement for nurses and midwives who are registered but not working, to complete CPD.
• The requirement for midwives with an endorsement for scheduled medicines to complete an additional 20 hours of CPD has been revised to 10 hours of additional CPD, related to prescribing and ordering of diagnostics.

Recency of practice

• Inclusion of information for nurses and midwives who work in non-clinical practice.
• Clarity has been provided about recency of practice requirements for nurses and midwives with an endorsement.

Professional indemnity insurance arrangements

• Inclusion of automatic reinstatement.
• The definition of ‘run-off cover’ has been amended for clarity.

Endorsement as a nurse practitioner

• Nurse practitioners are required to demonstrate recency of practice at the advanced practice nursing level to retain the endorsement.
• The definition of ‘Program that is substantially equivalent’ has been amended for clarity.

Revised registration standard: Continuing professional development

Revised registration standard: Recency of practice

Revised registration standard: Professional indemnity insurance (PII) arrangements

Revised registration standard: Endorsement as a nurse practitioner

The revised registration standards were approved by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council on 27 August 2015 and were part of a scheduled review of registration standards. A public consultation was held as part of the review. National Boards have published consultation reports providing a summary of the consultation processes, rationale for any changes and proposed way forward, including areas where further work is planned. The submissions to the public consultation and consultation reports will be published on the NMBA past consultations page.

Standards for practice

The Registered nurse standards for practice comes into effect on 1 June 2016 and will replace the current National competency standards for the registered nurse.

The Registered nurse standards for practice now reflects current nursing practice in all contexts.

Midwifery specific registration standard and guidelines

The NMBA has also published the revised Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines for midwives and Safety and quality guidelines for privately practising midwives, which will come into effect on 1 January 2017. More information is available in this news item.

Additional resources

The following additional resources about the revised registration standards are available on the AHPRA website.

• Letters of approval 
• consultation reports:
  • Continuing professional development registration standard 
  • Recency of practice registration standard 
  • Professional indemnity insurance arrangements registration standard 
• common FAQs and timetable for commencement