How we supported our professionals and protected the public in the last year

Our latest Annual Report and Accounts, and Fitness to Practise Annual Report, span the third year of our strategy for 2020–2025. While health and care services again grappled with huge demand, we worked to help ease pressures by delivering on our strategic goals. 

• We changed our English language requirements to offer more flexibility to international applicants to our register, while maintaining the high standards needed for safe and effective care.
• We modernised our education programme standards following the UK’s exit from the EU, giving educators greater flexibility to widen access and deliver courses at the cutting edge of education.
• We published an anti-racism resource, in partnership with NHS England and NHS Confederation, to support nursing and midwifery professionals to combat racism.

We also continued to tackle our fitness to practise caseload. Encouragingly, our Annual Report shows a 14 percent reduction in the caseload and we’re confident this downward trend will continue. At the same time, we recognise the caseload remains too high. Being involved in our processes can be distressing, both for members of the public raising concerns, and for the professionals those concerns are about. That’s why reaching decisions quickly and fairly to protect the public remains our number one priority.

Meanwhile as part of our education and standards work, due to the number of concerns identified, there was not enough time for Canterbury Christ Church University to re-seek approval of its midwifery programme for September. We understand the huge impact of our decision, and are working closely with our partners to support the university and the students affected. However, our paramount concern is to uphold the high standards of midwifery practice that women and families have the right to expect. 

All our work is underpinned by a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). In 2022 we published our EDI plan, and our latest Ambitious for Change research into the differences professionals experience in our regulatory processes because of who they are. As a regulator and employer, we’re determined to play our part in tackling the inequalities we see across health and social care. This will support professionals to provide the safe, effective and kind care everyone deserves.

Andrea Sutcliffe, NMC Chief Executive and Registrar, said: 

“Rising demand across health and social care made 2022-2023 another challenging year for our professions. It’s why we’ve been working hard to regulate well, support our professions to deliver high quality care, and positively influence sector-wide decision making and workforce planning.

“Our primary focus has been to reduce our fitness to practise caseload so we can make quick and fair decisions that protect the public. We’ve continued to strengthen and improve our education standards to support learning, and introduced changes in our English language requirements to ensure they’re both fair and robust.

“We know there’s still much more to do over the final two years of this strategy. We’re working with the Government on reforms which will transform the way we work, we’re exploring the potential regulation of advanced practice to ensure consistent standards of care for people, and we're working with partners to improve safety in maternity services for the benefit of women, babies and families. I’d like to say thank you to all my colleagues and members of Council for their hard work over this last year and for their commitment to make further progress in the year ahead.”

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