June 09, 2021
June 2021

A year of responding with resilience

Our 2020 Annual Report, Rising to the Challenge, is now available. In an unprecedented year of challenge and change, this report outlines some of the ways CNO quickly responded to ensure patients could receive safe nursing care, no matter the circumstance.

Our 2020 Annual Report, Rising to the Challenge, is now available. In an unprecedented year of challenge and change, this report outlines some of the ways CNO quickly responded to ensure patients could receive safe nursing care, no matter the circumstance.

The report spotlights some of our initiatives over the past year, such as helping more nurses provide care in the health care system, and our continual efforts to keep our members and the public informed about COVID-19. It also points to our bold new plan for the future and the changes we’ll be making to strengthen our position as leaders in patient safety.

Here are some of the highlights:

We brought more nurses to patients

As the need for health care services increased because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we registered thousands of nurses in Ontario. We implemented the Emergency Assignment Class, and encouraged eligible applicants to register with us.

We stayed connected throughout

With our building closed to the public, we held our very first virtual Council meeting and moved our disciplinary meetings online so we could continue these critical functions remotely. Even when a cyber incident temporarily locked us out of many of our systems, we turned to cyber security experts to get things up and running quickly.

We kept information coming

Using our social media channels, website, Call Centre and Practice Support, we maintained constant contact with all of you, our applicants and the public. We also established an ongoing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

We supported your continuing competence

We simplified our QA Program to focus on self-reflection so that you could have better insight into your day-to-day practice during the pandemic. Our ongoing Nurses’ Health Program also helped those with substance use and/or mental health disorders get assessed and treated early on.

We partnered with others

As always, we kept collaborating with all our partners, such as the Ministry of Health, to keep patients safe. With feedback from our Employer Reference Group, we also developed a resource to help employers stay informed about changes throughout the pandemic.

We made a plan for the future

Throughout it all, we created a new organizational plan for the next four years, which sees a CNO that is more agile and proactive in addressing potential sources of harm before they can negatively impact the public.

To find out more, be sure to check out our 2020 Annual Report and let us know what you think.

About CNO

The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) is the regulator of the nursing profession in Ontario. It is not a school or a nursing association. CNO acts in the public interest by:

  • assessing qualifications and registering individuals who want to practice nursing in Ontario.
  • setting the practice standards of the profession that nurses in Ontario are expected to meet.
  • promoting nurses' continuing competence through a quality assurance program.
  • holding nurses accountable to those standards by addressing complaints or reports about nursing care.

The College was founded in 1963. By establishing the College, the Ontario government was acknowledging that the nursing profession had the ability to govern itself and put the public's well-being ahead of professional interests.

For the latest information, please see our Nursing Statistics page.

Anyone who wants to use a nursing-related title — Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) or Nurse Practitioner (NP) must become a member of CNO.

Frequently Asked Questions

Go to the public Register, Find a Nurse, to conduct a search for the nurse. Contact us if you can't find the person you are looking for.

All public information available about nurses is posted in the public Register, Find a Nurse, which contains profiles of every nurse in Ontario. Publicly available information about nurses include their registration history, business address, and information related to pending disciplinary hearings or past findings.

Unregistered practitioners are people who are seeking employment in nursing or holding themselves out as being able to practice nursing in Ontario, but who are not qualified to do so. They are not registered members of CNO. Only people registered with CNO can use nursing-related titles or perform certain procedures that could cause harm if carried out by a non-registered health professional. CNO takes the issue of unregistered practitioners seriously. See Unregistered Practitioners for more information.

To ensure procedural fairness for both the patient (or client) and the nurse, the Regulated Health Professions Act requires that information gathered during an investigation remain confidential until the matter is referred to the Discipline Committee or Fitness to Practise Committee. CNO will not disclose any information that could identify patients (or clients) or compromise an investigation. See Investigations: A Process Guide for more information.

Information obtained during an investigation will become public if the matter is referred to a disciplinary hearing. If a complaint is not referred to a hearing, no information will be available publicly.

See CNO's hearings schedule, which is updated as hearing dates are confirmed. Hearings at CNO are open to the public and the media. For details on how to attend a hearing, contact the Hearings Administration Team.

A summary of allegations and the disciplinary panel outcomes can be found on the public Register, Find a Nurse. Full decisions and reasons are also available.

Where a disciplinary panel makes a finding of professional misconduct, they have the authority to reprimand a nurse, and suspend or revoke a nurse's registration. Terms, conditions and limitations can also be imposed on a nurse's registration, which restricts their practice for a set period. Nurses can also be required to complete remedial activities, such as reviewing CNO documents and meeting with an expert, before returning to practice.

For detailed information see the Sexual Abuse Prevention section.

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