Health profession regulators: A Case Study on the BC College of Nurses and Midwives

  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
  • The role of professional health regulators and how they resolve complaints against practitioners
    has been examined and studied in many jurisdictions in the west. Much of the research has
    focused on the impact the complaint process has on disciplined professionals and complainants.
    This research has not included researching into how the public awareness of regulatory college
    and how their understanding of regulatory colleges informs the public’s expectations on how
    complaints can and should be resolved. In the context of a Canadian province’s nursing
    regulatory body, this research attempts to understand the public’s awareness of the BC College
    of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM), capture their perspectives on the standard complaint
    process, and gauge their support for an alternative dispute resolution process. This study focuses
    on BCCNM’s current complaint resolution process and explores an alternative dispute resolution
    process that is administered at the College of Nurses of Ontario. The study uses one-on-one
    interviews and a focus group to collect the data. By using these two qualitative methods, this
    study collects data on the participants’ awareness of BCCNM, their understanding and
    expectations of a standards complaint process, and their perspectives and receptiveness to an
    alternative complaints process. The findings from this study reveal the participants have some
    awareness of BCCNM and general understanding of health profession regulators. Their
    expectations for complaint outcomes did not fully align with the college’s mandate and
    regulatory right-touch philosophy. The participants’ supported the alternative dispute resolution
    process but raised concerns about transparency and future public protection.

  • Date created
    2022-06-01
  • Subjects / Keywords
  • Type of Item
    Research Material
  • DOI
    https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-j78x-kw17
  • License
    Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International