Editor,
In British Columbia, nurses, along with 20 other health professions, are governed by regulatory colleges.
These colleges ensure their respective health professionals meet the educational, ethical and professional requirements to provide safe and quality care to all British Columbians.
Right now, nurses in B.C. are regulated by three colleges.
Over the past 18 months, the College of Licensed Practical Nurses of B.C. (CLPNBC), College of Registered Nurses of B.C. (CRNBC) and the College of Registered Psychiatric Nurses of B.C. (CRPNBC) have been working together to co-create a new nursing college that will regulate all nurses in the province.
Working in partnership with the provincial government, the colleges were pleased to announce last week that the necessary legislative changes to enable this new college have now been made.
This is an important step forward in creating one nursing regulator in B.C.
You may be wondering what a single nursing regulator will mean for British Columbians. Currently, having three colleges means that nurses in B.C. are subject to different regulatory requirements, including quality assurance, registration and practice standards.
A new college will be able to simplify the regulatory process by setting consistent standards for nurses across the province while respecting the differences between nursing designations.
A single regulator will break down silos in nursing regulation to better reflect the integrated relationships already present in the workplace while establishing an environment that will allow the college to collaborate even more easily with other regulators and regulated health professionals.
This will create more opportunities to work towards and incorporate best practices in regulation.
Finally, creating a single point of contact for members of the public, government and nursing employers will make it easier for them to share their concerns and collaborate, enhancing accountability throughout the nursing profession.
This will ease and, hopefully, encourage engagement with registrants, while enhancing public safety by reducing confusion around which college to contact.
So what are the next steps towards creating one nursing regulator in B.C.?
Over the next several months the three colleges, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, will be engaged in the critical work to make this new regulator a reality.
This work will include the development of draft bylaws to be posted for public consultation, the initiation of the CEO selection process for the new college, supporting the minister in the appointment of the new college board, moving from three locations into a single location and aligning the policies and processes that are required on the first day that the new college comes into existence.
Staff of the three existing colleges have been planning for this phase of work over the last year and are eager to move forward.
As we move towards the creation of one nursing regulator, the three colleges will continue to be focused on safe and quality care for the public. With one nursing regulator, the public – from patients to government – will have a single regulator to look to for safety, professionalism and unified nursing regulation in the province of B.C.
Carina Herman, Registrar/CEO
CLPNBC
Cynthia Johansen, Registrar/CEO
CRNBC
Kyong-ae Kim, CEO
CRPNBC