Covid-19 temporary registration will end in March 2024

Published on 18 September 2023

The Government has confirmed that emergency registration of nurses and midwives will now end in March 2024.

The NMC stopped accepting new people onto the temporary register in March 2022, when the relevant part of the Coronavirus Act 2020 expired. Earlier this year, we made changes to ensure we maintain the register safely so that people continue to receive the high-quality care they have a right to expect.

Professionals can continue to practise with temporary registration until the end of March 2024. Our focus will now turn to supporting those who wish to continue practising after March 2024 to join our permanent register. We will write to everyone on the temporary register in the coming weeks with more information on next steps.

Andrea Sutcliffe, NMC Chief Executive and Registrar, said:

“We remain incredibly proud of the nurses and midwives who joined the Covid-19 temporary register. The height of the pandemic was a frightening time for us all, but thousands of professionals stepped forward to help support essential health and care services. They have made a vital difference to people’s lives and we’re immensely grateful for their contribution, particularly in the Covid-19 vaccination programme.

“Professionals will not be able to practise with temporary registration after the end of March 2024. We’ll be writing to everyone on the temporary register shortly to advise them of next steps. We’ll also use the next six months to support those who wish to continue practising to transition to our permanent register.”

More information

  • As of 13 September 2023, there are 1,446 nursing and midwifery professionals with temporary registration.

Other recent news…

Ron Barclay-Smith becomes new NMC Chair

Published on 31 March 2025

We are pleased to announce that Ron Barclay-Smith has been appointed as the new Chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), following a competitive proces


Record number of screening decisions in fitness to practise

Published on 25 March 2025

In a record-breaking month, the NMC has made more decisions at the earliest stage of the fitness to practise (FtP) process than ever before. This comes as we ma


NMC to survey 841,000 professionals on the register

Published on 24 March 2025

We’re sending a survey to over 841,000 nursing and midwifery professionals on our register to better understand their experiences of delivering care. We also wa