Nurses’ College Makes More Information Publicly Available
As of September 15, 2015, all nurses became subject to new disclosure requirements. Nurses are now required to inform the College of Nurses of Ontario (the “College”) if they are registered or licensed to practise nursing in another jurisdiction, if any finding of professional misconduct, incompetence or incapacity has been made against them in another profession and/or jurisdiction, or if they are subject to any bail conditions that relate to their practice. In addition, Nurse Practitioners must notify the College if they hold professional privileges at any hospital or other health facility in Ontario. The College has indicated that nurses will be expected to self-report this information, although some of it will also be collected during the annual membership renewal process. Registrations and licenses in other jurisdictions, as well as health facility privileges, can be reported to the College using the Maintain Your Membership section of the College’s website. Information about bail conditions and discipline findings in other jurisdictions must be relayed to the College using the self-reporting form.
It is important for nurses to remember that self-reporting of this information is mandatory and that failing to comply with this obligation could potentially result in a referral to the College’s Discipline Committee and could be found to be an act of professional misconduct.
The new self-reporting obligations follow Council’s approval at its meeting on September 10, 2015 of changes to the College’s by-laws respecting the information that is made available to the public about its members. These by-law amendments, and those that were approved by College Council back in March, form part of the College’s work with the Advisory Group for Regulatory Excellence (“AGRE”) and the wider ongoing transparency initiative currently being undertaken by of all Ontario’s health regulatory colleges to increase the amount of information publicly available about health care professionals.
As a result of the College’s efforts around transparency to date, the following additional information will begin to appear on the College’s public register on December 15, 2015:
notifications regarding the status of all hearings before the Discipline Committee, including applications for reinstatement;
a full copy of every notice of hearing where an allegation of professional misconduct or incompetence has been referred to the Discipline Committee in respect of a member;
a summary of any criminal findings of guilt that are relevant to the member’s suitability to practice;
a summary of any restrictions imposed by a court or other lawful authority that impact a member’s practice, such as bail conditions;
a summary of any oral cautions ordered by the College’s Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee (“ICRC”) and any remedial activities that the ICRC requires a member to complete, such as a specified continuing education or remediation program;
a notation of any other jurisdictions in which the member is currently registered or licensed to practice nursing;
any findings of professional misconduct or incompetence that have been made against a member in another profession or jurisdiction;
a summary of any criminal charges relevant to the nurse’s suitability to practice arising on or after December 1, 2015; and
the name of each hospital and health facility in Ontario where a nurse practitioner has professional privileges, as well as any revocations, suspensions or restrictions on those privileges.
Not all of the information will remain on the public register indefinitely. The information about criminal charges will be removed from the public register once the charges have been disposed of. In addition, the College is currently circulating proposed by-law changes regarding the automatic removal of information about cautions and remedial activities from the public register. The College is recommending that such information be removed three years after the nurse meets all of the requirements set by the ICRC, so long as no further concerns arise during this time. There will be exceptions for cautions and remedial activities resulting from possible sexual abuse or boundary violations, in which case the information would only be removed once the College has ensured that the nurse does not pose a risk to the safety of the public.
Feedback on these recommendations will be accepted until November 18, 2015. The College’s Council will then likely consider whether to approve these recommendations at its meeting in early December.
For more information regarding these changes to the College of Nurses of Ontario by-laws and how they may affect you and/or your practice, please contact us.
