March 08, 2018
November 2018

Why do I need a Learning Plan?

Why does our Quality Assurance (QA) Program emphasize self-reflection? Because the evidence tells us that the ability to reflect is an essential skill for nurses.

Reflection helps you grow and learn — and your ability to continually grow and learn is crucial to maintaining the ability to provide safe nursing care. That’s why continuous improvement is one of your nursing accountabilities. It’s also why we have designed every element of our QA Program to support your ability to reflect and learn.

Why does our Quality Assurance (QA) Program emphasize self-reflection? Because the evidence tells us that the ability to reflect is an essential skill for nurses.

Reflection helps you grow and learn — and your ability to continually grow and learn is crucial to maintaining the ability to provide safe nursing care. That’s why continuous improvement is one of your nursing accountabilities. It’s also why we have designed every element of our QA Program to support your ability to reflect and learn.

QA is more than just CNO assessing your ability to reflect. Participating in QA by creating a Learning Plan — an action plan for how to address the areas for improvement you have identified — is how you demonstrate to the public that you are dedicated to making your practice the best it can be. It’s also a way for us to support you and help you improve your practice. Next month, when you begin creating your Learning Plan, take advantage of the resources we’ve created to assist you. Our learning modules, worksheets and webcasts can help you develop measurable and SMART learning goals.

We know our QA Program works. When you are selected for the Practice Assessment portion of QA, we evaluate your ability to reflect and your knowledge of CNO standards. Over the last five years, of the nurses who were not able to demonstrate an ability to reflect or a knowledge of the practice standards, 88% were successfully able to improve and learn through remediation. Supporting nurses this way is one of the key ways we protect the public.

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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