Support for you
We understand that the fitness to practise process can feel overwhelming and sometimes lead to anxiety. Here are some options which may be able to provide you with some support.
Fitness to Practise Careline
You might want to talk to someone who understands what you're going through, and how you're feeling, in complete confidence.
To help, we've partnered with CiC, a leading employee assistance provider, to give emotional support and practical help and advice to all nurses, midwives and nursing associates during the fitness to practise process.
The careline counsellors are experienced in working with sensitive and personal information. They can also signpost you towards specialist organisations to help with specific issues.
You can contact the Fitness to Practise Careline on 0800 587 7396
The service is free, independent, confidential and non-judgemental.
CiC won't share any information with the NMC unless you want them to. Their focus is on providing you with the best support, help and advice.
This service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
CiC's counsellors speak a variety of languages and can also be contacted by next generation text, for those with speech or hearing difficulties, live chat, email or video call.
CiC won't know specific details of your NMC case unless you choose to share it with them. If you have specific questions about your NMC case, you can contact your case officer, whose contact details can be found at the top of the correspondence you will have received from us.
Your call will go through to a trained telephone advisor who will listen to what you have to say and offer support to help you with any concerns.
CiC do all they can to meet specific requests from clients. Their clinical assessment is designed to ensure that only those clients who are likely to benefit from short term counselling are referred to their network practitioners.
It is important to note that short term counselling is not suitable for everyone. Those callers requiring other types of treatment or help are supported to access what they need.
CiC aims to make the Fitness to Practise Careline as accessible as possible.
The 24/7 Careline can be contacted by phone, email or via a secure chat room.
A team of qualified counsellors supports the advisers. Structured counselling sessions, if appropriate, can be delivered either face to face in the counsellor's consulting room, over the telephone or online using email or a secure chat room.
We understand that some people might not feel comfortable talking about their issues over the phone. Well Online is our wellbeing resource that's updated continually and run my CiC.
Well Online is a resource for you to find information covering a wide range of topics and can also tell you where to go for immediate emotional support. It also has an online chat that allows you to contact a Confidential Care Adviceline therapist. To access Well Online, you'll need to enter the following login details.
Username: ftpwellbeing
Password: wellbeing
Organisations providing wellbeing support
Cavell provides grants, advice and a listening ear to nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants looking to take charge of their finances and feel more in control.
@FSNA_UK (X account)
The Hub of Hope is a mental health support database. It is provided by national mental health charity, Chasing the Stigma, and brings local, national, peer, community, charity, private and NHS mental health support and services together in one place.
The Laura Hyde Foundation's objective is to ensure that all medical and emergency services personnel have access to the best mental health support network available.
NHS Practitioner Health is a mental health treatment service for healthcare staff covering England and Scotland. The service exists to help those members of the workforce who, due to confidentiality reasons, cannot access care or treatment locally.
Practitioner Health offers expertise around the special needs of healthcare professionals with mental illness or addiction, how their role might impact on their ability to receive confidential care; and how their condition might impact on their work and potentially their own patients. The service works in the unique interface between health practitioners as regulated professionals and as patients with a mental illness, and as such may also be able to offer some additional expertise where staff are undergoing an investigation or complaint and mental illness may have played a part in this.
The service will assess all referrals and registrations to consider if they are able to offer a route to treatment, or if signposting to an alternate confidential support offer would be beneficial.
You can talk to Samaritans at any time about anything troubling you. Anything disclosed is completely confidential. Samaritans can help you explore your options, understand your problems better, or just be there to listen. Samaritans are available all day, every day.
Find out more
Phone: 116 123 (free to call)
Email: jo@samaritans.org
Write to: Freepost RSRB-KKBY-CYJK, PO Box 9090, Stirling FK8 2SA
