We're here to offer support to any patient, service user, family member, or member of the public who has raised concerns about a nurse, midwife or nursing associate on our register that we've decided to investigate.
Public support service
Our public support service can help you to understand how the investigation process works. Through it, our public support officers can answer individual questions or provide one-to-one meetings and help explain the different decisions that could be made.
What to expect when you contact us
When you contact the public support service (PSS), a public support officer will offer to meet with you to explain what happens when we investigate a nurse, midwife or nursing associate and what the possible outcomes might be. Or you can discuss things over the phone if it's easier.
This discussion gives you the opportunity to ask us anything you're unsure about, and it gives us a chance to make sure we fully understand your concerns, make sure that we have all the relevant information to help us investigate, and we can also provide details of other organisations that can offer further help.
How our public support officers can help you?
- Make sure we know and understand your concerns and explain the investigation process and the possible outcomes
- Helps you understand the role of the NMC and what we can do
- Informs you of other organisations who may be able to help with concerns that we can't help with
- Can meet you at the end of the investigation or hearing to explain the decision.
How we explain the outcome of our investigation
Once we've investigated the nurse, midwife or nursing associate, a public support officer can help you understand the outcome and provide details of other organisations that can offer further help.
They'll offer to meet with you again, which will either be at the end of the investigation or at the end of a fitness to practise hearing.
You can bring a friend, family member or someone else to support you to the meeting.
You can download our public support service leaflet and easy read guide on public support meetings.
Where are the meetings held?
You can meet our public support officers either virtually or at one of our offices in London.
If you travel to our offices, we can reimburse you for reasonable travel costs for you and someone if you’d like to bring them for support.
Support advocates
Our public support officers can refer some members of the public to support advocates if they need additional communication support.
Our support advocates can help someone with all aspects of communication, making sure their interactions with us are as smooth as possible. This can include helping people understand our fitness to practise process, to understand the decisions we make and also providing information in a clear way to us.
The aim of this service is to help people with particular needs to navigate our fitness to practise processes and help them provide us with any relevant evidence so we can progress their case.
PreviousRelated pages
- Concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Who we are and how we regulate
- Who you should raise a concern with
- What happens when we receive your concern
- Investigating your concern
- Examining cases
- Meetings and hearings
- How we reach an outcome and what to expect after a hearing
- Supporting you during our fitness to practise process
- Jargon buster
