April 03, 2018
April 2018

A better way to register

The College is constantly striving to improve the services we provide to nurses and applicants. One way we’re doing this is by modernizing our registration services and practices. Here are just a few ways we’re improving.

The College is constantly striving to improve the services we provide to nurses and applicants. One way we’re doing this is by modernizing our registration services and practices. Here are just a few ways we’re improving.

Scanning documents and going digital
As part of our ongoing effort to go paperless, we now scan the documents we receive from applicants and store them digitally, which will make processing applications easier and faster.

An online portal
Work has begun on an online application portal, which will offer self-service to individuals seeking to become a nurse in Ontario. Stay tuned for more information when we launch the Applicant Portal later this year.

We’re making many changes that are designed to reduce the time it takes applicants to register as a nurse with the College. You can find out more about the changes we made in our 2017 Fair Registration Practices Report to the Office of the Fairness Commissioner. The report includes statistics, such as the number of membership applications we processed in 2017, and where applicants obtained their initial nursing education.

The Office of the Fairness Commissioner is a government agency set up to ensure the registration processes for regulated professions and compulsory trades in Ontario are transparent, objective, impartial and fair.

As we make more improvements at the College, we’ll share this information with you in The Standard. To read our Fair Registration Practices Reports from previous years, visit www.cno.org/OFC-report.

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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