Now you’ve successfully completed your nursing associate course, we look forward to welcoming you onto our register.
We understand becoming a registered professional is a huge step. We’re here to support you to deliver the highest standard of care throughout your career.
Before you join our register, we’ll need some information from you and your education institution.
This page sets out what you can expect along the way. Of course we'll keep you updated throughout and you can check how it’s going through your NMC Online account. We've also included some helpful resources at the end of the page.
Before you get started
We have special arrangements in place to register people who started their training in England before we became the regulator and approved education programmes.
These arrangements apply to you if you started your training before 26 July 2019 on a:
- nursing associate programme delivered by a Health Education England (HEE) approved nursing associate pilot site, or
- nursing associate apprenticeship programme.
What your education institution will do
As you started your training before we became the regulator for nursing associates, we'll need to assess whether or not your qualification is comparable to a qualification from a programme that we would approve.
To help us make this assessment, the education institution awarding your qualification will send us your details when you finish your programme.
They'll also declare that you have:
- met our standards of proficiency for nursing associates
- achieved the number of learning hours required by HEE’s Curriculum Framework
- benefited from a breadth of placement experience in keeping with a generic (non-field specific) role.
What you need to do
Once we have everything we need from your education institution, we’ll send you an email (or a letter if we don't have your email address) inviting you to create your NMC Online account. You’ll need to use your account to:
- nominate a referee to confirm you have the health and character to practise safely
- tell us about any police cautions or criminal convictions
- confirm that you hold an appropriate indemnity arrangement (or you will when you're working as a nursing associate)
- pay the annual registration fee of £120.
Our emails may go into your junk email folder so make sure you check this regularly. To stop this from happening, add ‘noreply@nmc-uk.org’ to your safe senders list.
Nominating a referee
Your referee must be a registered nurse who you've known for at least one year and who has been in contact with you in the past 6 months. You may want to nominate the nursing lead on your programme.
You should check whether your nominated person is happy to be your referee. You will need to tell us their name and PIN number.
When you've nominated your referee, they'll receive an email from us asking them to go to their NMC Online account to make the declaration about your health and good character.
How we'll review your application
We’ll start reviewing your application from 28 January 2019 when the nursing associate part of our register opens.
We encourage you to submit your information as soon as possible. If we have everything we need, you’ll be on our register within 2-10 working days.
Sometimes, we might need a bit more information from you or your education institution so it can take longer.
Checking your qualification
We’ll use the declarations from your education institution to assess the comparability of your qualification.
If your qualification is comparable, we’ll continue to process your registration as if you have an approved qualification.
If we cannot deem your qualification comparable, you're entitled to take a Test of Competence. The test is split into two parts, a computer based test (CBT) and the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). We'll send you an email or letter to explain what you need to do next.
See the guidance we're sharing with your education institution about how we'll assess the comparability of your qualification.
Assessing your health and character
Declaring a caution or conviction, or a health condition or disability, doesn’t automatically mean you won’t be able to join our register.
We review these declarations so that we can check that the people on our register have the health and character to practise safely.
We'll consider all the information provided and use this to make a decision on your suitability to be registered.
Letting you know when you're on our register
Once we’ve got all the information we need and you've paid the fee, we'll add you to the register. We’ll send you an email or letter to let you know we've done this.
You'll then be able to download and print your statement of entry to the register.
Helpful resources
If you have any questions or need more information about your application to join our register, speak to your education institution or get in touch with us by email at nursing.associates@nmc-uk.org.
Webinar on appyling to join our register
We held a webinar for nursing associate students who are planning to apply to join our register.
- Watch the video recording of the webinar
- Download the nursing associate student webinar slides
These resources will be useful if you're about to complete your course.
