NMBA announces 1 September changes to fees

09 Aug 2017

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) has announced changes to registration application fees from 1 September 2017.

The NMBA regulates nurses and midwives under the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.

Nursing and midwifery regulation in Australia is funded solely by fees from nurses and midwives. There is no cross subsidisation in the National Scheme, meaning fees from nurses and midwives only fund nursing and midwifery regulation costs.

The NMBA works in partnership with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) to keep the public safe. The work the NMBA does to contribute to safe practice includes:

• development of evidence-based and practice-tested standards, codes and guidelines
• investigation and decisions on concerns raised about nursing and midwifery practice
• annual registration to ensure only qualified, competent nurses and midwives can practise in Australia, and
• accreditation of approved programs of study that lead to registration and endorsement.

General registration

For the 2018 registration renewal period, the application fee for general registration will increase from $150 to $155.

NMBA Chair Lynette Cusack RN said that the fee for general registration had remained the same for the past two years, despite costs rising each year.

‘The general registration fee has not increased since 2012 and was reduced from $160 to $150 in 2014/15. It has remained at $150 for the past two registration periods. The increase is in line with consumer price indicators over that time. The costs of regulating nurses and midwives to keep the public safe across Australia have risen and we need to make this small increase to contribute to meeting those costs.’

Graduate registration

From 1 September 2017, the fee for a graduate application for registration will increase from $20 to $50.

‘The first time graduating students apply for registration as a nurse and/or midwife, the application process has to be robust to ensure that only qualified and suitable people are registered,’ Associate Professor Cusack said.

‘The NMBA and AHPRA continually make improvements to processing applications to keep costs as low as possible. However, the cost of processing graduate applications for registration is far higher than the fee.'

‘This fee increase will make a greater contribution towards the costs of processing student applications for registration.’

Overseas assessment fee

From 1 September 2017, the overseas assessment charge will increase from $220 to $350. Associate Professor Cusack explained that this was the most costly application for the NMBA and AHPRA to process.

‘Assessing applications from internationally qualified nurses and midwives is complex and time consuming because education and qualifications vary so widely across the world,’ she said.

‘The public expects the same standards of knowledge and skills from its nurses and midwives no matter where they trained and as the regulator it is our responsibility to ensure they get that.'

‘Our fee for overseas assessment is comparable to similar regulators around the world.’