National Registration

[Sophia36]

Hi, as you know, our registration will be united as national registration.

I am just wondering how you think about the natioanl registration.

Personally, I think it is owesome. If I want, I can go to other states any time without endorsement.

I got some information re: national registration and hope you read and understand it thoroughly :-)

Click here to read more about national registration.

Wow, I am getting excited!! However, I have heard we need to maintain our professional portfolio well...

Cheers,

[dvsbec]

I agree, it will make life easier for those wanting to work interstate. I work in a position where I've had to maintain 4 separate registrations, simply because Queensland shares a border with those states, and therefore there is a potential i may need to provide nursing care to someone from another state. So this will definitely make things easier.

However, I do have a few problems - firstly they have kept very quiet regarding the cost of the annual renewal fee. That makes me worried.

I also feel the 20 hours training per year is a big ask. Actually, no, thats not quite true - 20 hours is ok I guess. But for those of us who have endorsements (eg nurse/midwives) we have to do 20 hours PER endorsement. So that means 40 hours of training/education. And I feel THAT is a lot!

It will be interesting to see how things go. My guess is the fees will rise dramatically within the first 2 years. I saw a similar thing happen in New Zealand - when they first brought in compulsory professional portfolios, the registration fee almost doubled, and they justified the cost saying it costs more now that they have to do so many audits of portfolios each year. (which, gosh, was THEIR idea!) LOL

Bec

[emxxxx]

I was quite dismayed that mental health nurses were not recognised, I have gone from a general nurse endorsed mental health nurse to just general.

Also I was wondering if anybody is able to clarify the personal indemnity insurance that was mentioned, is that something that all nurses need to buy individually or would it depend on your area of practice such as midwives offering home births?

[dvsbec]

re: indemnity insurance - from what we've been told, all nurses MUST have it. If you are a member of your nurses union, this insurance is included in your union fees. There are separate rules regarding indemnity insurance for home birth midwives however - they are usually not covered with the insurance offered by the union.

If you are not a member of the union, either consider joining, or you will have to look at obtaining insurance yourself.

Hope this helps.

Bec

[emxxxx]

Thanks Bec

I am in the ANMF, received an email from them this afternoon and they are looking into organising access to affordable insurance for their members, so I take that to mean we are not covered at present by the union which means another expense

[talaxandra]

I agree with dvsbec - fees will stay static for a couple of years and then jump. It will be interesting to see what happens to the fees of other professions with this change, too.

[ghillbert, MSN, NP]

Regardless of whether you are in the union, you should have your own professional indemnity insurance. I have needed it before, and the union-provided lawyers were completely useless, and I had no way to address it since I wasn't paying them and they didn't have to answer to anyone.

[gogirlgo]

Dissappointed that with national registration I will not be able to get endorsement as a mental health nurse.

Doing my graduate year at the moment, and plan to do a Grad Dip in Mental Health Nursing next year, but the incentive to undertake the Grad Dip has been reduced.

Will those who currently call themselves a Registered Psychiatric Nurse have to stop doing so under national registration? I guess their endorsement would just disappear!

[ceridwyn]

Yep, it would seem so.

div 2's here in vic will also need to refer back to their title as EN's. We had a nurse that referred to themselves as rndiv1 plus RPN plus RM. even though they never practiced these endorsements. I myself state, only sign my name, write my name and if I have to in title write, Nurse, I am over the titles bit.

Think about it though, many nurses have specialised with Dip eds, diabetic educators, ICU,CCU, ED, paeds, the list goes on....no endorsement has ever been conferred on these nurses.

What has their union done about this?

PS. nurses, only trained as mental health nurses in the old system, for years have been able to claim the title RN Div 1, here in Vic !!!!! and not even attended an IV or RBG. signed, meagre RN.

[emxxxx]

Im a registered general nurse endorsed in mental health (at the moment) and rang to ask about the disregard for mental health nurses and was told that I would show up on the computer as being a qualified mental health nurse but it would not be documented on the registration card, doesnt really make any sense to me and I am quite upset about it as I am extremely proud to be a RMHN.

[Scrubby]

re: the 20 hours of portfolio this includes in services you go to at work and any articles you read through professional nursing associations.

I may be opening a can of worms here but I can't understand why people are complaining that you cannot be registered as a mental health nurse. I've completed a grad dip in perioperative nursing and I can't call myself a Registered Perioperative Nurse, you can't be registered as a Critical Care Nurse Aged Care Nurse, Infection Control Nurse, Oncology Nurse etc after completing the grad dip so why should mental health nurses get treated differently?

[joannep]

I think because there are a lot of psych nurses that aren't trained as general nurses; they did 3 years of psych nursing.