The emergency registration of nurses and midwives onto the NMC register will end on 24 March, the Government has confirmed.
The NMC has asked the Government to provide three to six months’ notice for those already on the temporary register. This means they can continue to practise beyond March, when emergency Covid legislation expires, and will have time to move to the permanent register if they are eligible.
The move comes with the Government’s ‘living with Covid’ plan, introduced yesterday, although NHS England has said there will be ‘no immediate changes’ to infection prevention and control guidance.
Andrea Sutcliffe, NMC chief executive, said the NMC will now prepare to close the temporary register ‘carefully over the coming months’. Temporary registrants be ‘informed with as much notice possible’ and given support to move onto the temporary register if they wish, she added.
She continued: ‘Nurses and midwives on our Covid-19 temporary register have played an incredible part in the national response to the pandemic. Thousands answered our call to join, and have helped to keep essential health and care services going under extreme pressure during the emergency. We’re very grateful to everyone for their dedication and commitment.’
The temporary register was first introduced in March 2020 to allow recently nurses and midwives who left the permanent register in March 2015 to help with tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, and was enabled by the emergency coronavirus legislation passed during the same month.
In January this year, the NMC announced more nurses trained overseas can now join the Covid-19 temporary register and said it will support them to move onto the permanent register.
The NMC also expanded the register in December 2020 to nursing and midwifery professionals whose registration lapsed between 1 March 2020 and 30 November 2020, to help support Covid vaccine rollout.
When the temporary register first launched, it was open to professionals whose registrations had lapsed between 1 March 2015 and 29 February 2020, and some overseas-trained nurses.
