January 31, 2024
January 2024

Highlights

Reminder to keep your contact details up-to-date

Reminder to keep your contact details up-to-date

As we start 2024, make sure to check that all your information with CNO is up-to-date on Maintain Your Membership (MYM), including your home address, email and phone number.

Keeping your contact information current is an accountability for all nurses. It’s how CNO contacts you with notifications about Quality Assurance (QA) Assessment, the latest issues of The Standard and other important nursing regulatory updates. CNO no longer distributes QA Assessment notifications or The Standard via mail, so it’s necessary for your email to be accurate.

Your contact information does not appear publicly on Find A Nurse – it's for CNO use only.

You can login to MYM here with your username and password. For more information, refer to our Update Your Info page.

Reminder to vote in Council elections if you are in one of three districts 

It is Council election season, and eligible voters in the Southwestern, Central Western and Central/Toronto districts have the chance to make their voice heard. All nurses in the Southwestern and Central Western districts are eligible to vote, while RPNs are eligible to vote in Central/Toronto.

Voters in those three districts can vote until 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, for members of Council who they feel have the competencies and attributes required to be an effective voice for patients.

Council is CNO’s board of directors, and it’s comprised of nurses and members of the public. Council makes important decisions that shape the regulation of nursing. Together, Council and CNO have one purpose: to protect the public by promoting safe nursing practice.    

Nurses in the three districts were sent their ballots via an email from CNO’s election provider, Big Pulse, on Jan. 22.  

If you have questions about the role of Council, the area of each district or more, please refer to our Council elections page. If you do not receive your ballot by email and it is not in your junk folder, feel free to reach out to elections@cnomail.org and include your name, registration number and electoral district. We will be happy to support you.

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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