NMC confirms 147 jobs cut at regulator

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has reduced its workforce by around 10% as part of an organisational overhaul aimed at improving efficiency and addressing financial pressures, it has been confirmed.

Some 147 posts have been cut by the nursing regulator following a proposed workforce restructuring programme first announced in October.

As of early January, the NMC has removed what it described as ‘non-critical vacancies’ and has redeployed ‘at risk’ staff to vacancies in critical roles.

An NMC spokesperson said a ‘small number of posts’ had been removed from its ‘Professional Regulation’ structure and that recruitment across the regulator had been restricted by around 50% compared to 2024/25.

Meanwhile some 57 staff members had left the NMC through voluntary redundancy.

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A spokesperson for the NMC said: ‘We assessed each role at the NMC before consulting with staff on proposed changes. This assessment was to ensure that we would not lose critical roles or skills – enabling us to maintain our core regulatory effectiveness.’

The changes mean the nursing regulator’s headcount has been reduced by around 10% – a move the NMC said reflected action being taken to ‘put our own house in order when it comes to our finances’.

The restructure also includes the launch of a new Transformation and Technology Services Directorate and a new Finance Directorate.

The changes also involve moving the NMC’s Registration and Revalidation team into the Professional Practice Directorate, bringing this area closer to its Education and Standards teams.

‘We’re building a new NMC which is the strong and independent regulator that everyone wants to see.

‘With this comes the need to modernise and change our organisational structure,’ the spokesperson said.

They added that bringing Registration and Revalidation closer to Education and Standards would strengthen alignment across teams, while allowing the Executive Director of Professional Regulation to focus exclusively on improving fitness to practise (FtP) performance.

The scale of the job losses has drawn criticism from the sector, with Unison head of health Helga Pile warning that the cuts could have consequences for remaining staff and the regulator’s performance.

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‘Making cuts on this scale will heap further pressure on those staff who remain and risks making it even harder to sort out the serious problems this regulator faces,’ Ms Pile said.

‘The union is working to support those affected by these changes.’

NMC chief executive and registrar Paul Rees acknowledged the impact of the reductions when speaking at a recent council meeting.

He said proposals were brought forward to remove ‘up to 10% of roles’ due to the organisation’s financial position, describing it as a ‘tough situation for colleagues across the NMC’, particularly those directly affected.

‘We unfortunately had to put forward proposals to remove a number of roles from our headcount. It was up to 10% of roles because of the financial position that the NMC finds itself in.

‘That’s been a tough situation for colleagues across the NMC, but particularly those people directly affected,’ he said.

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Mr Rees added that while some roles in the Professional Regulation directorate were lost through the efficiencies programme, the wider restructure was necessary to ensure the organisation was ‘fit for the future’.

The NMC is deciding whether to increase its registration fee following a 12-week consultation that ended in January.

Also in January, the regulator warned that its financial reserves will fall to ‘unsafe levels’ by the summer of 2027 if plans to increase registration fees do not go ahead.