The Department of Health WA offers an Immunisation certification course  to all health providers in WA who are immunisation providers or who are planning to become an immunisation provider. The course is accredited by the Royal College of Nursing, Australia.

For more information please refer to the course flier(PDF 134 KB) 

Registration information

Before you register, please consider the below points:

• Do you work in an immunisation related area? (highly preferable)
• Do you have a licence to practice in WA?
• The cost of the course is $100. Money orders or cheques are accepted, please see registration form. Payment through Journal transfer is accepted for public sector employees.
• There is a course intake on the 1st of each month, the registration form and payment needs to be received by the 10th of the month prior. Late registrations will not be accepted.
• The course duration is 5 weeks from the 1st of the month in which it starts. If you are unable to commit to that time period, e.g have holidays planned, then consider starting in the next month's intake.
• The course is run through distance education, you will require a computer to complete this course. Internet access is not mandatory.

To register, complete and return the registration form(PDF 118KB) to the address at the bottom of the form.

Please note: Nurses working in the public sector should seek further information from their Regional Immunisation Coordinator or Occupational Health and Safety/Infection Control Nurse prior to registering.

Background

This course has been developed to meet the education and training needs of health professionals providing immunisation services across the various health services. It aims to uniformalise immunisation practice in WA.

It is designed to assist health professionals in gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to gain immunisation competence and immunisation certification. There is a degree of assumption of knowledge in this course and it would be beneficial if the student undertakes the course whilst working in a clinical envioronment so that they can practice the skills learnt in the course to gain a well rounded understanding of immunisation.

The course includes both theoretical and clinical practice components. This self paced, distance education program is designed as a flexible learning program. Learning materials are supplied as part of the study package. The course content is aligned to the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines with particular emphasis on the Department of Health Western Australia standards of practice.

The course is designed to support rural and remote, general and community nurses in their expanded and demanding practice role.

Course duration

The theoretical component of the immunisation certification training program will be five weeks in duration.

The clinical practice component will be dependant on students knowledge and previous clinical experience.

Nurses will be expected to complete the theory (training manual), clinical practice requirements and clinical assessment component of the course.

Course content includes:

• immunity
• routine immunisation schedules and vaccines
• diseases for which routine immunisation is given
• criteria for giving immunisation
• anaphylaxis
• consent
• educating the person, family and community about the importance of being vaccinated
• storage and transport of vaccines
• the role of the nurse
• client assessment

For further information on the certification course, contact the course coordinator on 9388 4861, your Regional Immunisation Coordinator, DIPON (Division of General Practice), Occupational Health and Safety/Infection Control Nurse or visit the Royal College of Nursing website (external site).