NMC relaunches forum for diaspora nurses and midwives

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has relaunched a forum aimed at strengthening support for diaspora nursing and midwifery professionals working in the UK.

The Diaspora Registrant Associations Forum (DRAF) is designed to help the regulator better understand and respond to the experiences of nurses, midwives and nursing associates who have joined the UK workforce from around the world.

Over a third of professionals on the NMC register are Black, Asian or from minority ethnic backgrounds, representing around a third of all registrants, according to the NMC.

While these professionals play a key role across UK health and social care services, many continue to face challenges including cultural barriers, racism and discrimination in their working lives.

The relaunched forum provides a dedicated space for the NMC to learn directly from diaspora professionals and ensure that regulation ‘supports them to thrive’, the regulator said.

DRAF brings together senior representatives from diaspora registrant associations across the UK, including chairs and senior nurse leaders who often provide pastoral and wellbeing support to their communities.

Membership includes a range of groups, including African, Caribbean, South Asian, East Asian, European, Middle Eastern, refugee and faith-based networks.

The forum will play a role in shaping the NMC’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy.

This includes helping to ensure that regulatory processes are inclusive, fair and responsive to the diverse experiences of registrants.

The refreshed forum met for the first time on Monday, 11 January, where members discussed several of the NMC’s key strategic priorities.

These included planned improvements to the fitness to practise process, as well as reviews of the Code and the revalidation process.

Identifying issues sooner

Tracey MacCormack, chair of the Diaspora Registrant Associations Forum, and assistant director for midwifery at the NMC, said: ‘The register is becoming increasingly diverse.

‘A third of nursing and midwifery professionals are now Black, Asian or minority ethnic, making it vital that we understand the experiences and challenges they face so we can better support them.’

She explained how the NMC will work with the forum to ensure ‘timely action’ on ‘emerging issues’, and to inform its approach to regulation.

The forum was previously known as the International and Diaspora Nursing and Midwifery Associations (IDNMA) forum and was originally launched by the NMC in April 2024.

It was established as a strategic engagement forum to support ongoing dialogue with international nursing and midwifery and diaspora associations.

The NMC noted that the name and format had evolved to better reflect the breadth of organisations involved, clarify its strategic remit, and align with NMC’s wider engagement approach, while maintaining the same core purpose.

A space for dialogue

Herbert Mwebe, director of Uganda Nurses and Midwives Association UK, said: ‘DRAF provides us space to dialogue and have frank discussions with the NMC, and other DRAF diaspora groups on the challenges impacting the professional development of internationally educated and diaspora nursing and midwifery professionals.

‘We were grateful to be involved in the first meeting of the refreshed forum, and to understand more about the NMC’s strategic priorities.’

While the forum has been rebranded, the NMC said it has continued to operate since its launch, with meetings held throughout 2024.

In November, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned that tens of thousands of international nursing staff could leave the UK if government proposals to double the qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) go ahead.

Meanwhile, latest data from the NMC, published earlier in December, saw an almost 50% collapse in the number of international professionals joining the register compared to the same six-month period last year.

Last July, the government published its ambition for international recruitment of NHS staff to reduce to ‘less than 10%’ by 2035.