The body overseeing the Nursing and Midwifery Council has found it is now failing against even more core standards than when its new leadership came in a year ago. 

The Professional Standards Authority, responsible for overseeing the Nursing and Midwifery Council, has published its annual period review of the regulator. It found it is now failing against even more core standards than when its new leadership came in a year ago. 

The PSA did not see evidence of “substantial and sustained improvement” despite positive intentions from the new leadership. There were “some areas where the NMC has taken very limited action to address issues identified” in the last review a year earlier.  

A particularly concerning area was that the PSA found evidence of disparities in the NMC’s fitness to practise outcomes in relation to EDI. Other worrying areas included the NMC’s performance related to education quality assurance and transparency of reporting. 

One area of significant concern to RCM members and also to the PSA was about the timeliness of decision-making on cases. Whilst there were improvements at the screening stage, this “has not been replicated at the investigations and adjudications stages. Cases are still taking too long to process, and we could only take limited assurance from our audit about the quality of the NMC’s decision-making at the screening stage”.  

There were ongoing significant concerns about how the NMC kept registrants and employers updated, which is “a particular concern given the length of time these processes take to conclude”. 

RCM Deputy General Secretary Robbie Turner said:  

“This is a shocking report card for the regulator after a much-trumpeted fresh start for the NMC last year. They are letting down midwives and nurses, NHS employers but most importantly the public who deserve an effective regulatory system that they can trust. Long delays in processing cases, ineffective approaches to quality assure education and yesterday’s news about their failure to follow the most basic processes to check registrants’ suitability tell a sorry story of continued failure. 

“We all need the NMC to do better than this. The NMC play a really important role in regulating nurses and midwives, and trust in the regulatory system is key to having a trusted midwifery profession. We knew last year when the new leadership came in that they had a mountain to climb, and we still want them to succeed. It’s a disappointment to us all that instead of making progress, they’ve actually slipped back and delivered on fewer standards than last year.”