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Nursing Council notification · Written to Code of Conduct

Ethics and Ethical Standards for Nurses for Nurses facing a Nursing Council investigation, complaint or allegation

The allegation concerns your ethical judgement, behaviour or conduct as a nurse.

  • Dishonesty — a chart, drug register, timesheet or statement that is not true
  • Boundaries — a boundaries breach with a patient, whānau or colleague
  • Confidentiality — patient information shared or posted without authority
  • Patient safety — a deterioration not escalated or a second check skipped
  • Consent — care given without a real choice, or a refusal not respected
  • Cultural safety — whānau excluded or karakia dismissed
  • Impairment — working while alcohol, drugs or fatigue affected you
  • Any other — ethical concern or allegation of unethical conduct

Facing an allegation of unethical behaviour or misconduct like these — from the Nursing Council, a Professional Conduct Committee or the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal?

Help with a Nursing Council investigation, complaint or allegation starts here. This CPD course helps you remediate — and demonstrate the remediation, with a dated certificate for your written response, your portfolio or a Committee or Tribunal direction.

Immediate access · certificate on completion · twelve months' access

  • 2 CPD hours
  • Self-paced
  • Written for New Zealand
  • CPD certificate
  • Bulk buy: any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400

At a glance

Who it is for
Any nurse facing a Nursing Council notification, complaint or allegation, a Professional Conduct Committee investigation or a competence review about ethical conduct, behaviour or decisions — an allegation of unethical behaviour, conduct or action
Authorities covered
The Nursing Council of New Zealand, its Professional Conduct Committees and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal
Length
10 sections, 55 lessons, 2 CPD hours
Format
Self-paced, online, immediate access, twelve months from purchase
Certificate
Issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses on completion, dated, with the course title and 2 CPD hours
Price
NZ$200 · any 5 for NZ$850 · any 10 for NZ$1,400

Certificate issued by Healthcare Ethics CoursesRemediation courses for regulatory processes.

2CPD hours, issued by Healthcare Ethics Courses
10Sections, nine closing with a reflective quiz
55Lessons, plus a post-course assessment
NZ$200One off. Twelve months' access

Who this course is for

Facing an allegation of unethical behaviour or conduct

The Council’s letter says a decision, a disclosure, a relationship or a shortcut on a shift fell short of the Code of Conduct. This course is how you account for it — and show you have remediated.

Dealing with a Nursing Council notification or complaint

A patient, whānau, a colleague, your employer, the HDC or ACC has raised a concern and the Council has asked for your account. Your written response is where the reasoning first appears; this course gives it the structure the Council reads for.

Under investigation by a Professional Conduct Committee

Two nurses and a layperson have the file and want your response before they decide what to recommend. They read for insight in your reflection — and for dated, targeted ethics remediation alongside it.

Facing a misconduct charge or hearing before the Tribunal

A charge of professional misconduct has been laid, or a penalty is being decided. Remediation completed before the hearing — dated, documented — is weighed every time.

In a competence review, under conditions or directed to complete CPD

Ethical practice is one of the competencies the Council assesses. A competence programme, conditions, a Committee recommendation or a return to nursing after time away — the certificate records two dated CPD hours written to the Code of Conduct.

Expecting a complaint to reach the Council

A complaint to your manager, the Health and Disability Commissioner or ACC can become a Nursing Council notification — and employers notify the Council more than anyone else. Remediation done now is documented before it does.

The concerns this course speaks to

Probity and an allegation of dishonesty

A medication signed for and not given, a chart altered to hide a missed dose, a controlled-drug count that does not reconcile, a timesheet or statement that is not accurate. Integrity is one of the Code’s four values, and the Council treats dishonesty as misconduct whatever the harm; honesty in documentation has a section of its own.

Professional and ethical boundaries

Friendship with a patient or their whānau that outlasts the care, messages after discharge, gifts, a relationship that began on the ward or with a colleague. The Council’s Professional Boundaries guideline puts the responsibility on the nurse; the course treats the first drift as the moment the standard is engaged.

Confidentiality, privacy and social media

A patient discussed in a corridor or a lift, records opened without a clinical reason, a post a small community can identify. Confidentiality is a duty under the Code and the Health Information Privacy Code, and the Council’s social media guideline applies it online without change.

Patient safety and escalation

A deterioration not escalated, a second check skipped, a resident who waited because there was not enough of you. The Code requires nurses to promote patient safety; the course treats the reasoning — and the escalation, and the record — as what a later reviewer looks for.

Consent and informed refusal

Care begun without proper informed consent from a patient who did not understand, or a competent refusal overridden — or respected without the record to show it. The Code asks nurses to make sure consent is real and not only recorded; the course covers both sides and what to write.

Cultural safety and Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Karakia dismissed, whānau kept to visiting hours during their worst week, a decision made without asking what mattered. The Code makes partnership a value and cultural safety a competency, and the course reads every principle through it.

Health, impairment and the risk to patients

Working while impaired by illness, exhaustion, alcohol, drugs or a mental health condition, or ignoring a colleague who said so. The Council’s health process exists for it; the course covers recognising impairment in yourself and others, and what a credible response contains.

When two obligations collide

Confidentiality against another person’s safety; the patient’s wishes against the whānau’s; one patient against the next on a short shift; conscience against a patient’s lawful care; candour after a medication error. The course teaches how to name the tension, decide, escalate, record — and tell the patient.

Facing a Nursing Council investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.

Buy this course — NZ$200

What the course covers

Ten sections and 55 lessons, with a reflective quiz closing each of the first nine and a post-course assessment at the end.

Section 01

Introduction — Why Ethics Is a Registration Matter for Nurses in Aotearoa

Five lessons

Section 02

The Four Principles at the Bedside

Five lessons

Section 03

Informed Choice, Consent and Refusal in Nursing Care

Six lessons

Section 04

Confidentiality, Privacy and the Digital Record

Seven lessons

Section 05

Probity — Honesty in the Chart, the Drug Register and What You Say

Six lessons

Section 06

Ethical Dilemmas of the Ward and the Community

Six lessons

Section 07

Cultural Safety and Te Tiriti o Waitangi as Ethical Practice

Six lessons

Section 08

Health, Fitness and the Duty Not to Harm

Five lessons

Section 09

Demonstrating Ethics in a Concern, a Competence Review or a Professional Conduct Committee

Seven lessons

Section 10

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Two lessons

Show every lesson title
Section 01 · Introduction — Why Ethics Is a Registration Matter for Nurses in Aotearoa
Ethics in Nursing Practice and Why the Nursing Council Regulates It; The Code of Conduct as an Ethical Document — Four Values, Eight Principles; Ethics and the Competencies for Your Scope of Practice; Consequences of Ethical Lapses — for Patients, Whānau, Nurses and the Profession; Ethics in Modern New Zealand Nursing — the Ward, the Community, the Screen.
Section 02 · The Four Principles at the Bedside
Autonomy — the Patient’s Choice and the Nurse’s Role in Making It Real; Beneficence — Acting for the Patient’s Good and Advocating Within the Team; Non-Maleficence — Safety, the Second Check, Escalation and Fitness to Work; Justice — Fairness Between Patients When There Is Not Enough of You; When Principles Conflict on a Shift — Name, Decide, Escalate, Record.
Section 03 · Informed Choice, Consent and Refusal in Nursing Care
What Informed Consent Requires and the Nurse’s Part in Checking It Is Real; Informed Refusal — Respecting a Competent Decision You Disagree With; Capacity, Fluctuating Capacity and Who Decides; Consent in Aged Care, Mental Health and Community Settings; Recording Choice and Refusal So the Record Protects the Patient and You; Case Comparison — a Refusal That Went Wrong, Two Responses.
Section 04 · Confidentiality, Privacy and the Digital Record
The Ethical Duty of Confidentiality and Why It Is Tested Most in Nursing; The Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code 2020; The Corridor, the Handover and the Shared Office; Confidentiality Against the Duty to Protect — When Disclosure Is Permitted and How; Social Media and Electronic Communication — the Council’s Guideline Applied; Telehealth and Remote Monitoring; Case Comparison — a Post That Identified a Patient.
Section 05 · Probity — Honesty in the Chart, the Drug Register and What You Say
Probity as an Ethical Duty and the Code’s Value of Integrity; Documentation Honesty — Late Entries, Corrections and Falsification; Medication Records and Controlled-Drug Counts; Honesty With Patients, Whānau, Managers and the Council; Financial Integrity — Timesheets, Claims and Gifts; Case Comparison — a Chart Altered After a Missed Dose.
Section 06 · Ethical Dilemmas of the Ward and the Community
Advance Care Planning, Advance Directives and the Whānau at the Bedside; Allocation of Time, Beds and Staff — Justice Under Short Staffing; Conscientious Objection — Assisted Dying, Termination Care and Contraception; Safeguarding — Older People and Family Violence; Professional Boundaries as an Ethical Question; Case Comparison — a Resident Who Waited.
Section 07 · Cultural Safety and Te Tiriti o Waitangi as Ethical Practice
Cultural Safety — the Council’s Expectation and Why It Is Ethics, Not Etiquette; Te Tiriti o Waitangi — Partnership, Participation and Protection in Nursing Care; Whānau as Participants — Care Planning, Discharge and Decisions; Tikanga in Everyday Care — Karakia, Kai, Tapu and Noa; Equity — Recognising and Acting on Inequity in Outcomes; Case Comparison — Karakia Dismissed Before a Meal.
Section 08 · Health, Fitness and the Duty Not to Harm
Recognising Impairment in Yourself — Fatigue, Illness, Substance Use, Distress; Recognising It in a Colleague and What the Act Asks of You; The Council’s Health Process — Supportive, Confidential, Not Disciplinary; Working Within Scope and Saying No to a Shift; Case Comparison — a Medication Error at the End of a Double.
Section 09 · Demonstrating Ethics in a Concern, a Competence Review or a Professional Conduct Committee
How the Nursing Council Reads an Ethics Concern; Reflection, Insight and Remediation — What Each Means and How Each Is Shown; Weak vs Strong Responses — Patterns Across the Six Cases; The Remediation Portfolio for a Nurse — Contents That Persuade; Writing the Response — Structure, Tone and the Sentence to Avoid; Supervision, Preceptorship and Audit as Evidence; Taking Advice Before You Respond.
Section 10 · Conclusion and Key Takeaways
The Ten Things to Carry Onto the Next Shift; Your Personal Ethics Plan — Habits, Escalation and Reflection.

How to respond to a Nursing Council notification, complaint or allegation

The Nursing Council, a Professional Conduct Committee and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal all read a written response for the same four parts. The course teaches each one.

The Council cannot know what you weighed at the bedside; it can only read what you write now.

  1. The obligations in playWhich principles the situation engaged — the patient’s choice, their benefit, their safety, fairness to the others in your care, honesty.The course maps each one to the Code of Conduct, so you can name it.
  2. The conflictWhere two of them pointed different ways, stated plainly.The course’s New Zealand nursing dilemmas show what the tension looks like on the page.
  3. The decision, and whose it wasWhich obligation prevailed and why — and whether the decision was yours alone or should have been escalated.Weak and strong responses to six nursing events show the difference.
  4. The reconsiderationWhat you would weigh differently now, with dated work that proves it.This course is the dated item you attach — and, for an integrity or boundary allegation, the remediation targeted to the lapse.

The sentence the Council reads as the absence of insight begins with an acknowledgement and continues with but the ward was.

Take advice from your indemnity insurer, your union or a lawyer before you respond to anyone.

Facing a Nursing Council investigation, complaint or allegation? This course helps you remediate — and demonstrate it.

Buy this course — NZ$200

How this course helps with a Nursing Council investigation

Six New Zealand events, two ways of answering for each

A chart altered after a missed dose. A procedure begun without real consent. A friendship that grew out of care. A remark to a frightened patient. Karakia refused before a meal. A medication error under pressure. For each, the course puts the response that ended a nurse’s matter beside the one that sent it to a Committee — and the strong one always names the principle of the Code first, does not reach for the ward as an excuse, and points to something dated that has changed.

Evidence a competence assessor or a Committee will accept

Counts: this course’s dated certificate, CPD targeted to the principle concerned, preceptor or supervisor reports, a documentation or medication audit repeated after an interval, feedback from patients or whānau gathered on purpose, Māori-led cultural safety training where the concern engages it, and reflective writing that cites the Code. Counts for less: hours on another subject, an apology for the complaint, and reflection that argues. For the stages from the first letter to the Tribunal, see the Council investigation process, explained.

Read the primary sources

Who wrote it

Dr Shehzad Iqbal, course author and facilitator at Healthcare Ethics New Zealand

Dr Shehzad Iqbal

Course author and facilitator, Healthcare Ethics New Zealand

Dr Iqbal has designed and delivered ethics, probity and professionalism training for healthcare professionals since 2020, working with registrants across regulated health professions, online and face to face. He combines clinical practice with formal postgraduate training in healthcare law and ethics.

MBBS · MRCS · MRCGP · Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Law and Ethics, University of Dundee

Written and reviewed by Dr Shehzad Iqbal. Last reviewed .

In short

Ethics and Ethical Standards for Nurses is a self-paced remediation course of 2 hours for nurses registered with the Nursing Council of New Zealand facing a notification, investigation, complaint or allegation, mapped to the Council’s Code of Conduct. It teaches the four ethical principles in the order a shift presents them and in the Code’s own words, reads them through Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and works through the situations that produce concerns about nurses: informed refusal, confidentiality and the duty to protect, advance directives and the whānau at the bedside, too many patients for one nurse, conscience, the corridor and the screen, honesty in the chart and the drug register, boundaries, and fitness to work. Six New Zealand case comparisons show the response that ends a matter beside the one that does not. Ten sections with a reflective quiz after each of the first nine, a post-course assessment, and a dated certificate from Healthcare Ethics Courses for your recertification portfolio. Remediation, not advice: no course decides a matter, and your indemnity insurer, union or a lawyer should read anything before it goes to the Council.

Four principles, one shift

Nursing ethics is mostly decided in minutes, by one nurse, with several patients waiting. That is why the four principles — autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice — feel abstract until a concern arrives, and concrete afterwards: the Council asks which were engaged, which gave way, and whether the nurse saw it. The course teaches them in the order a shift presents them and maps each to the Code of Conduct’s own principles, and to New Zealand law where the law adds a duty.

Three things are nursing-specific. Escalation: the Council reads for whether you recognised when the decision was not yours to make. Partnership: under Te Tiriti o Waitangi whānau are participants in care, and cultural safety is a competency, not a courtesy. Pressure: an account of a lapse under short staffing is read for whether you can separate the system’s failure from your own.

What these words mean

The three terms that decide where a matter goes, and the other words the course uses.

Professional Conduct Committee
The committee the Council or Board appoints under s 71 of the Act to investigate a conduct concern: two members of the profession and a layperson with a legal adviser. It asks for your written response, may hear from you, and recommends anything from no further action, through counselling and a competence or health review, to a charge before the Tribunal (s 80).
Professional misconduct
The Tribunal’s ground under s 100 of the Act: malpractice or negligence in your scope of practice, or conduct that has brought or was likely to bring discredit to the profession. Dishonesty, a boundary breach and a breach of confidence are among the findings made under it.
The three routes under the HPCA Act
Fitness to practise is the phrase practitioners use for the whole process. Under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 the Council or Board takes one of three routes: a competence review (your practice against the required standard); the health process — the Act’s fitness to practise provisions, for impairment by a mental or physical condition; or a referral of your conduct to a Professional Conduct Committee, which can lay a charge of professional misconduct before the Tribunal. Which route your letter names tells you how the matter is being treated.
The four principles and the other terms the course uses
Autonomy
The patient’s right to make informed choices about their own care, and to refuse it, without pressure. In nursing practice: the information given in terms the patient can use, the capacity considered, the refusal respected and recorded, the team told. Breached by proceeding regardless and by treating a refusal as non-compliance.
Beneficence
The obligation to act for the patient’s benefit as they and their circumstances define it, and to advocate for them within the team. It does not override a competent refusal, and it is the principle often invoked when a nurse overrides one.
Non-maleficence
The obligation not to cause avoidable harm by act or omission: medication safety and the second check, observations taken and acted on, escalation, working within scope, and not practising while unfit. The principle a competence review often engages.
Justice
Fairness between patients and to the public: attention on clinical need, non-discrimination, honesty in the use of public resources. Engaged whenever there is not enough time, staff or beds, and whenever a nurse’s own interest is in the room.
Informed consent
Agreement to care by a patient who has capacity, has been given the information a reasonable person in their position would want, and is free to decline. In New Zealand a professional standard and a patient’s legal right; the Code asks nurses to check that consent is real, not only recorded.
Confidentiality
The duty to keep health information private under the Code and the Health Information Privacy Code. Not absolute: disclosure is permitted in defined circumstances, and the course covers how a decision either way is made and documented.
Conscientious objection
A nurse’s right to decline to participate in a lawful service on grounds of conscience, conditional on saying so, not obstructing the patient’s access to care from another practitioner, and continuing all care that is not in conflict. Concerns arise from the conditions, not the right.
Cultural safety
Care that the patient and their whānau experience as safe and respectful, delivered in partnership, with the nurse examining their own assumptions and the power in the relationship. In the Code a value and a competency; in a concern, an ethical matter rather than a question of manners.

The provisions an ethics concern about a nurse engages

The Nursing Council publishes its own standards of ethical conduct under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and an ethics notification about a nurse is measured against them. These are the standard itself and the provisions of the Act the notification runs under.

Nursing Council — Code of Conduct

The Council’s Code (2012) with its guidelines on Professional Boundaries and on Social Media and Electronic Communication. It is the standard the course is written to and the document the Nursing Council reads your response against. Read it.

For this course: The course maps the four principles onto the Code’s four values and eight principles so that a response can cite the Code by principle.

Section 71 — referral to a Professional Conduct Committee

An ethics concern is a conduct concern — the drug register, a boundary, a confidence — and is referred to a Professional Conduct Committee of two nurses and a layperson, which investigates independently and asks for your written response. Read it.

For this course: An ethics concern about a nurse — the drug register, a boundary, a confidence — is referred here as conduct, and the course explains what the Committee of two nurses and a layperson will look at.

Section 100 — the grounds of discipline

The Tribunal may discipline for professional misconduct — malpractice or negligence, or conduct likely to bring discredit to the profession — among other grounds. Dishonesty in a record or register, a boundary breach and a serious breach of confidentiality can each reach it. Read it.

For this course: Dishonesty in a record or register, a boundary and a serious breach of confidentiality can each reach this threshold.

Section 101 — the penalties

Censure, conditions, suspension for up to three years, cancellation of registration, a fine of up to NZ$30,000 and costs. Insight, remediation and conduct since the events are weighed every time, and an ethics course completed before the hearing is dated evidence of them. Read it.

For this course: The Tribunal’s penalty decisions about nurses weigh insight and the evidence of change; the course is about producing both.

Also engaged: Section 118 — the Council sets the standards a concern is measured against · Section 80 — what a Professional Conduct Committee may recommend, from counselling to a charge · Section 36 — a competence review where the concern is a pattern of judgement.

Not a nurse? New Zealand regulates 18 professions under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and the process is the same for all — courses for every registered profession →

Frequently asked questions

What should my written response actually contain?

The situation as it was; the obligations in play and where they conflicted; what you decided and why; whether it should have been escalated; the effect on the patient and whānau in their terms; and what you would weigh differently now, with dates. Name the principle of the Code yourself — a Committee notices when the nurse gets there first.

Should someone read my response before I send it?

Yes. Your indemnity insurer, your union or professional body, or a lawyer should see anything before it goes to the Council, a Professional Conduct Committee, the Tribunal or your employer. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no course determines the outcome of a matter.

Will the Nursing Council or a Professional Conduct Committee accept this course as remediation?

No provider is accredited by the Nursing Council, and no course decides a matter. What a Committee and the Tribunal weigh is dated, targeted remediation with reflection that engages the standard — and this course is written to the Code of Conduct, principle by principle, so the connection is plain. Check the wording of any direction with your indemnity insurer, union or lawyer before you rely on it.

My patient refused, I documented it, and they deteriorated. What will the Council look at?

Three things: whether the refusal was informed — risks explained in words the patient could use, capacity considered, the offer repeated; whether you escalated as they deteriorated; and whether the record shows both. The Code protects a competent refusal; the course is about making sure the record protects you too.

Someone told me something in confidence that suggests another person is at risk. Can I disclose it?

Yes, where disclosure is necessary to prevent a serious threat to someone’s life or health, or the law requires it — to the person who can act, limited to what they need, recorded, and where possible discussed with the patient first. The course shows a disclosure the Council accepted beside one it did not.

The concern is about the drug register. Is an ethics course the right one?

It is one of two. Probity has its own section here, and the Council treats a register that does not reconcile as a matter of integrity whatever the explanation. The Professionalism course for nurses covers the same event from the conduct side; many nurses take both.

Is a cultural safety lapse an ethics matter or a competence matter?

Both. The Code makes partnership a value and respect for cultural needs a principle, and the Council assesses cultural safety as a competency. A concern about karakia refused or whānau excluded is read as an ethical failure, and remediation is expected to be Māori-led.

Can I refuse to be involved in assisted dying or termination care?

Yes, on grounds of conscience — provided you say so, the patient gets the care from someone else without delay, and you continue every other part of their care. Concerns arise when a patient is left without care, not from the objection itself.

Does the course deal with telehealth and social media?

Yes. A section covers confidentiality in the digital setting — the shared office, the video call, the post a colleague can identify — under the Council’s Social Media and Electronic Communication guideline.

I am a midwife. Should I take this one?

Take the midwives’ page instead: it is written to the Midwifery Council’s code and processes. A nurse who also holds midwifery registration should follow the authority that has written to them.

How long does it take, and how long do I have access?

The course is 2 CPD hours, self-paced, with twelve months’ access from purchase. The certificate is issued on completion, dated, with the course title and the CPD hours, for your recertification portfolio, a competence programme or a response.

Notifications rarely raise one issue. These are the courses that pair with this one.

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Insight for Fitness to Practise

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See all CPD courses for nurses and midwives in New Zealand →

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