22 June 2006

NEW NURSING ACT

The new nursing act has been published in Government Gazette No. 492 of 29 May 2006. The act is called the Nursing Act, 2005 and is Act No. 33 of 2005.

Attached please find a copy of Nursing Act, 2005 for your information (this Act is not yet in operation)

Your attention is drawn to the following important points in the new act:

The Nursing Act, 2005 “comes into operation on a date determined by the President by proclamation in the Gazette” – Section 62 of the Nursing Act, 2005.

Existing regulations, notices, orders, etc. remain in force

All existing regulations, notices, orders, registrations granted, etc. under the old nursing act will remain in force under the Nursing Act, 2005 – Section 61(1) of the Nursing Act, 2005. The only exception to this section being any thing that is contradictory to any provision of the new nursing act.

The Nursing Council will, together with the Department of Health, endeavour to bring all existing regulations, etc in line with the provisions of the Nursing Act, 2005 as a matter of extreme urgency. Priority will be given to those provisions of the new nursing act that do not have any existing regulations.

The current Council will not automatically be dissolved when Nursing Act, 2005 comes into operation

When the Nursing Act, 2005 comes into operation, the current Council will continue functioning and current council members will continue to be members of the council until the current Council is dissolved by the Minister of Health by notice in the Gazette (unless a particular member or members resign from the Council for any reason) – Section 61(2) and 61(3) of the Nursing Act, 2005.

There are other transitional arrangements that you should note

Section 61 of the Nursing Act, 2005 also contains some other transitional arrangements that should be studied in order to understand how the transition between the old and the new acts will be effected.

An electronic version of the act is also available for download on the Council website:

www.sanc.co.za

The electronic version is particularly useful as the table of contents is fully bookmarked to help you quickly find the section you are looking for. It is of course also fully text searchable.

(Signed)
Hasina Subedar
Registrar

NB: For further information, please contact:

The Communications Officer

Tel: (012) 420-1000