Nursing in a legal and ethical environment in Australia - Essay Example

lia or NMBA (AHPRA, 2013; AHPRA, 2013b; ANMAC, 2013). The OH&S Act of 2004 took effect on July 1 2005 with the effect of governing the health and safety of workers in Australia, superseding an older law that had the same name and dating back to 1985. This latter legislation is vital in that it lays the legal framework for worker protection and the securing of that as well as the worker’s health through cooperation between employees and employers and through self-employed individuals and the government and concerned agencies (Australian Legal Information Institute, 2013b).

The Victorian Charter of Human Rights, as the name implies, is a fundamental charter that forms the foundation of the acknowledged human rights in the state of Victoria, and used as foundation for a large body of precedent law on issues relating to human rights for all kinds of workers, including those in the health care system, and the people that they interact with (Australian Legal Information Institute, 2013; Law Institute of Victoria Limited, 2012). The National Registration and Accreditation Scheme or NRAS, on the other hand, is an accreditation scheme that started in 2010 and had the purpose of making sure that professionals in the health care field are vetted and accredited by a single governing body.

The list of professionals in this scheme include dentists, medical doctors, chiropractic experts, Chinese medicine practitioners, pharmacists, nurses and midwives, occupational therapists, medical radiation professionals, osteopathy professionals, physiotherapists, podiatrists, and psychologists. The idea is each of the professional associations known as National Boards in the healthcare field have their own sets of rules and regulations, standards for admission, and professional guidelines and codes, while the NRAS provides aid in administration to the National Boards via the AHPRA as the coordinating agency and the agency tasked with administration duties for the NRAS (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013). II. Regulations that Govern the Advocacy of Patient Rights, Duty of Care In the OH& S Act, there are provisions relating to the performance of skills only to the levels to which the performer has been trained, to secure the safety and the well-being, as well as the security of patients under the care of the performer of the tasks.

Moreover, there are aspects of patient rights that are protected by the code of ethics and the rules of behavior embodied in the charters of the National Boards, as well as in the NRAS, and the governing and accreditation bodies including the AHPRA, the ANMAC, and the NMBA. It can be said that this body of codes altogether guarantee a level of professionalism and a degree of competency required for professionals, by way of securing the safety and the well-being of the patients. Moreover, duty of care provisions are likewise embodied in the codes of conduct and the codes of ethics, as well as the rules and regulat