Our engagement forums

Our data shows that the growth of the UK nursing and midwifery workforce has become more reliant than ever on internationally educated1 and diaspora professionals2 joining the NMC register. But we know these professionals often face discrimination and inequality in their workplaces which impacts them personally as well as on the safe delivery of care for people.

To strengthen our understanding of the specific experiences of internationally educated and diaspora professionals, we’ve created the International Nursing and Midwifery Association (INMA) Forum.

The INMA Forum will bring together the NMC with International Nursing and Midwifery Associations (INMAs). These are organisations that provide pastoral and wellbeing support to internationally educated and diaspora professionals, as well as raise awareness of issues that these professionals face while working in the UK.

Objectives

  • Ensure that expertise, evidence, experience and knowledge from internationally educated and diaspora professionals informs and challenges all that the NMC does as we regulate, support and influence.
  • Actively involve internationally educated and diaspora professionals in co-producing the NMC’s strategic work as it considers the future of nursing and midwifery regulation in the UK.
  • Enable the NMC to work together with internationally educated and diaspora professionals to develop strategic policy and operational decisions, helping us support safe, effective and kind care for the public.
  • Ensure emerging issues, which relate to both the NMC’s work and internationally educated and/or diaspora professionals, are identified earlier and can be acted upon in a timely manner.

Meeting notes

Documents

INMA Forum Terms of Reference

NMC Membership policy summary

This policy is aimed at anyone who is currently involved or is seeking to be involved in one of the NMC’s engagement groups. It does not apply to NMC employees, any of the NMC’s governing bodies, Council, committees or panels as defined in our rules or to contractors who support the delivery of NMC operations. The NMC is committed to ensuring that the membership of our engagement groups reflects the nursing, nursing associate and midwifery professions and the communities they support across the UK’s four nations. We recognise our responsibility to reach out to a diverse range of external partners and the value that comes from hearing from a broad range of people.

We are also committed to upholding our public sector equality duty as part of the Equality Act 2010 (and our applicable equality duties in Northern Ireland) by integrating consideration of equality into how we establish and operate engagement groups. The NMC’s values are to be fair, kind, ambitious and collaborative. These values are at the core of the experience we want people to consistently receive when they join our groups and this policy has been written in line with them.

Read the Membership policy summary

[1] Internationally educated professionals are nurses, midwives and nursing associates on the NMC register who have received their professional education outside the UK.

[2] Diaspora professionals are nurses, midwives and nursing associates on the NMC register who have cultural ties to countries outside the UK – they may be internationally or domestically educated.