Nursing in Australia : nurse education, divisions and professional standards

![CDATA[The nursing profession in Australia is regulated; nursing education is regulated by a system of accreditation and nursing practice by a system of registration. This dual regulation provides the structure for this chapter. In Part 1, we describe the accreditation of nurse education by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council. This part explains how health care providers and consumers can be assured that the courses undertaken in order to enable a person to apply for nursing registration will actually qualify that person for registration. We then describe how nursing education came to be delivered in universities rather than in hospitals, as it was until the 1980s. In Part 2, we describe the registration process and what it means for nursing practice. Registration through the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) is required to enable nurses to practice legally; however, we also describe some of the associations that promote nursing as a profession apart from the legal requirements of registration.]]