Raising a concern with a nurse, midwife or nursing associate's employer
In most cases, it's best to start by raising your concern with the nurse, midwife or nursing associate's place of work, and we'd usually recommend doing this before coming to us.
An employer is usually best placed to resolve issues quickly and fairly.
They may then decide to refer someone to us once they've investigated your concern themselves. All the information they gather during an internal investigation can then be used in our own investigations and speed up the process overall.
If you haven't raised your concern locally with the employer of the nurse, midwife or nursing associate, our screening team might talk about this with you.
Find out more about how to complain to the NHS
Find out more about patient advice and liaison services (PALs) in your area
There are a number of organisations that can support you when raising concerns with the NHS like Healthwatch or the NHS’s complaints advocacy service.
If you want to raise a concern about a health and social care service instead of an individual, please contact the Care Quality Commision. The Patients Association can also help you raise a concern with the CQC.
Referrals helpline
Once you’ve decided we’re the right organisation to raise a concern with, please call our referrals helpline. It’s there for any member of the public who’s considering raising a concern with us about a nurse, midwife or nursing associate. We can help explain more about who we are, how we can help you and most importantly, what support we can offer you.
Call us on 020 3307 6802. Some calls will be recorded to help us train colleagues and monitor the quality of support we provide. We might use the recording to check details about fitness to practise referrals and complaints. There’s more information in our privacy notice.
We don’t publish any of the concerns that are raised with us, although we may have to share some of the details in our concern with other people, like employers to gather the right evidence.
If your concern isn't about a nurse, midwife or nursing associate, please find a list of regulators that can help you below.
Regulator |
Who they regulate |
Phone number |
| General Medical Council (GMC) | Doctors | 0845 357 8001 |
| General Dental Council (GDC) | Dentists, dental therapists, dental hygienists, dental nurses, dental technicians, clinical dental technicians and orthodontic therapists | 020 7887 3800 |
| Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) | Arts therapists, biomedical scientists, chiropodists, podiatrists, clinical scientists, dietitians, hearing aid dispensers, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, paramedics, physiotherapists, prosthetists and orthotists, radiographers and speech and language therapists | 020 7582 0866 |
| General Optical Council (GOC) | Opticians | 020 7580 3898 |
| General Chiropractic Council (GCC) | Chiropractors | 020 7713 5155 |
| General Osteopathic Council (GOsC) | Osteopaths | 020 7357 6655 |
| General Pharmaceutical Council (GPC) | Pharmacists, pharmacy technicians (on the voluntary register) and pharmacy premises in Great Britain | 020 3365 3400 |
| Care Quality Commission (CQC) | Health and adult social care services in England | 03000 616161 |
| Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) | Makes final decisions on complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS in England | 0345 015 4033 |
| Social Care Wales | Social care workers, qualified social workers, and social work students on approved degree courses in Wales | 0845 070 0399 |
| Healthcare Inspectorate Wales | NHS services and independent healthcare services throughout Wales | 0300 062 8163 |
| Care Inspectorate Wales | Social care and childcare in Wales | 0300 7900 126 |
| Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC) | Social care workers, qualified social workers, and social work students on approved degree courses in Northern Ireland | 02890 417600 02890 239340 (Ffôn testun) |
| Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) | Pharmacists and pharmacy premises in Northern Ireland | 02890 326927 |
| Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) | Social care workers, qualified social workers, and social work students on approved degree courses in Scotland | 0845 603 0891 |
| Healthcare Improvement Scotland | Independent hospitals and clinics in Scotland | 0141 225 6999 |
| Care Inspectorate (Scotland) | Care services in Scotland | 0345 600 9527 |
| Social Work England | Social workers in England | 0808 196 2274 |
| The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority | Health and social care in Northern Ireland | 028 9536 1111 |
| Healthcare assistants (HCAs) are not currently regulated in the UK. If a patient or member of the public has a complaint about a healthcare assistant, they should raise their concerns with the organisation that the healthcare assistant works for. |
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Sharing your information with us
We encourage everyone who raises a concern with us to give us their contact details. Sharing your information with us is important as it means we’re more likely to be able to investigate your concern.
In most cases, after you’ve raised a concern, we’ll need to get in touch with you to find out more information, make sure we have all the documentation we might need and explain to process to you.
To do this, we need a way to get in touch with you.
Having your contact details also allows us to keep you up to date with our process and inform you of the outcome.
You can let our screening team know that you’d like to remain anonymous throughout the process even though you’ve given us your details. They’ll do everything possible to accommodate this, but we can’t always guarantee it will be possible, for example if you need to attend a hearing.
If you choose to submit a concern to us without sharing your details, we can’t get in touch with you and this can sometimes mean we can’t take your concern forward.
This means it’s much harder for us to help you, act on the concerns you've raised with us or let you know the outcome of any investigation we might do.
Sharing your referral
In order to properly investigate your concern, on some occasions we’ll need to disclose some of the details you’ve shared.
We often need to share share the details of the concern with the nurse, midwife or nursing associate and their employer, as we need to collect evidence that will help with any investigation.
Accessibility
We're committed to making sure that our fitness to practise processes are accessible for everyone.
If you need help to bring your concerns to our attention, would like our information in another format, or need us to make an adjustment because of disability or injury, please call us on 020 3307 6802.
Related pages
- Concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Who we are and how we regulate
- How we regulate and the types of concerns we look into
- 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
