Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) investigations risk inflicting ‘significant psychological and professional harm’ on registrants and may be impacting patient safety, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress heard from speakers yesterday.
The debate at this year’s RCN Congress in Liverpool also highlighted feelings of distrust by nursing staff towards the regulator, including from among minority ethnic groups.
Michelle Cox, a former health visitor who won a historic case of race discrimination against the NHS in 2023, suggested that many of the referrals to the NMC result in ‘no case to answer’ but cause major distress for registrants.
‘The process inflicts significant psychological and professional harm on the individuals involved,’ she said.
She recalled her own experience with the regulator, where she was referred and re-referred to the NMC, with both referrals resulting in ‘no case to answer’.
Ms Cox suggested that there were cases of ‘misuse of the referral process’.
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‘We need to advocate for the legal immunity protections for those making vexatious discriminatory referrals, and lobby for the establishment ofrof clear mechanisms to help keep individuals and organisations to account,’ she said.
Her concerns were shared by Ruth Bailey, chair of the RCN Women’s Health Forum and an advanced nurse practitioner in primary care, who warned of ‘unacceptable delays’ to fitness to practice (FtP) hearings.
‘[This] means a compromise to public safety, subjecting registrants to lengthy periods of anguish and stress,’ she said.
She added: ‘This is both unjust and counterproductive.
‘It’s not in the public interest to traumatise registrants, and it’s not in the public interest to keep nurses and midwives who’ve got a contribution to make out of practice.’
Ms Bailey suggested that the NMC is failing to both protect the public and uphold confidence in the nursing profession.
‘The public has a right to confidence in the profession, and the profession has a right to confidence in the regulator,’ she said.
Responding to the concerns raised by nurses Luke Evans, who proposed the resolution, said FtP proceedings should ‘not be going on’ for such a long time and that major reform was needed to fix delays.
‘We need these issues to be resolved swiftly, so that good nurses are back there on the front line delivering exceptional care, and that nurses that are a risk to society are removed immediately,’ he said.
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Responding to Nursing in Practice, an NMC spokesperson commented the regulator is ‘working to bring back confidence’ and pointed to its recently published corporate plan which focus on the NMC’s delivery of its core regulatory functions, including registration and revalidation.
‘One of the elements of our Culture Transformation Plan is regulatory fairness, through which we aim to embed EDI – underpinned by an anti-racist ethos – in the way we regulate.
‘We will apply EDI best practice to all our regulatory functions, from registration and revalidation to FtP – to improve the experience of everyone who encounters our processes, regardless of their characteristics and background,’ they said.
They added that the regulator’s FtP Improvement Plan is ‘leading to gradual improvements’, including making more case decisions per month.
‘The number of cases resolved within our 15-month target is rising, and the number of people waiting longer than 18 months for their case to conclude is falling. We know there is still a long way to go – and we will keep working to deliver faster, fairer and more effective regulation,’ they affirmed.
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The resolution was submitted by the RCN’s Public Health Forum and passed overwhelmingly, with the wording: ‘That this meeting of RCN Congress calls on RCN Council to undertake work on the future regulation of nurses, midwives and nursing associates to ensure the protection and safety of the public and nursing profession.’
