Professional Regulation and Criminal Liability

The following paper is going to go over the different regulations and criminal liability that nurses in California are affected by. In California the Board of Registered Nurses (RN) regulates all current licensed registered nurses. The Board of Registered Nursing is put into place to make sure that all patients are protected along with making sure registered nurses are provided a safe environment to work in (State of California, 2013).

All complaints should be filed with the Board of Registered Nursing. If any patients or co-workers feel that a nurse has or is doing anything that may be illegal within the workplace they should report it. Some of examples of misconduct are license application fraud, abuse, unlicensed activity, and gross negligence. Once the Board of Registered Nursing has received the complaint they will determine if they have authority to investigate after a thorough review. If they are not the proper authority to take action on the complaint they will refer the complaint to the appropriate agency. If they cannot find agency to take care of the complaint the board will then send a letter back to the complainant letting them know that no investigation will be conducted. The following complaints are not areas that are covered by the Board of Registered Nursing: general business practices, billing, pharmacists, physicians, vocational nurses, and nursing assistants (State of California, 2013).

When the determination has been made that someone does want to make a complaint they need to provide a statement with a detailed description of the complaint. The more detail the better such as have time and date, any documents or evidence that backs up the complaint. Those who choose to be anonymous must provide very good documentation or it will be hard for the board to act on the complaint.

Once the Board of Registered Nursing has received the complaint they will send a letter to the complainant within ten days. The board will then prioritize the complaints by severity. Those that have great effect on patients such as abuse will be investigated immediately. In the cases that do have evidence of misconduct or any violation of the Nursing Practice Act by a registered nurse will result in informal or formal proceedings. If no evidence is found the complainant will be notified that they case is closed.

During the investigation all detail are confidential to ensure that nothing exposes information the investigation. After the investigation if there is action taken against a nurse it is possible that that some of the information could be made into public record. It is also possible if the nurse is charge criminal or has to go to court the complainant may have to testify against that person.

The Board or Registered Nursing is also the disciplinarian for Registered Nurses that violate the Nursing Practice Act. There are numerous factor that play a role on determining what penalty will be enforced