The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) will establish an independent oversight group that will report to the super regulator on its work to improve its culture and performance.
The news comes as part of an update from NMC chair Sir David Warren who today outlined the regulator’s response to the damning culture review which exposed serious concerns around bullying, racism and toxicity.
In an NMC Council meeting earlier today, Sir David – who said he would not stand down despite calls to do so – updated council on a meeting he had with health minister Karin Smyth last week.
He said he wanted to lay out the NMC’s plans for change, ‘in order to provide ministers, the devolved governments, our stakeholders and the public with the assurance that we are urgently addressing the concerns raised in the independent people and culture review’.
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The review, published earlier this month, identified a ‘dangerously toxic culture’ at the regulator, where bullying, racism and burnout were putting nurses and the public at risk.
And it called for an ‘urgent turnaround plan’ to ‘stop a dysfunctional culture’ that existed within the NMC.
Speaking today, Sir David explained that the NMC’s super regulator, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), would be founding an ‘Oversight and Support Group’ that will receive regular updates on the NMC and its progress.
The group will be used to ‘scrutinise the impact of measures introduced by the NMC to improve its culture and performance, and it will provide insight and advice on further actions which we may need to take’.
It is ‘envisaged’ to include all chief nursing officers from the UK’s four nations, alongside representatives from trade unions, policy officials from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and devolved governments, as well as other ‘relevant experts’ chosen by the PSA.
Sir David added that NMC will be hiring ‘one or more’ senior independent advisors to join its governing council, in order to ‘increase the challenge and support that the council receives to ensure that the necessary cultural changes are delivered’.
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The culture review had outlined a series of concerns about the NMC’s fitness to practise (FtP) process, including claims of a ‘mishandling’ of cases relating to racism.
Recognising the need for ‘urgent improvements’ to the FtP process, Sir David said the regulator will be ‘identifying additional external expertise’ to provide advice on improving registrant’s experiences of the referral process.
Sir David also assured the council that the NMC will appoint an interim chief executive and registrar ‘as soon as we can’, and announced that the regulator would be launching the campaign for this hire next week.
The DHSC and equity research firm ‘Inclusive Boards’ will be included in finding the replacement, with the NMC hoping to announce its permanent chief executive and registrar hire before Christmas.
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This comes after Dawn Brodrick – who was due to take over from Andrea Sutcliffe who left after ill health – resigned before taking on the role following concerns over her link to a high-profile NHS race discrimination case.
