In this guide
Welcome to revalidation
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We were so pleased to be able to welcome our first qualified nursing associates to the register in 2019, and appreciate the invaluable support you provide to the health and care workforce in England.
Nursing associates are regulated by us in the same way as nurses and midwives. This includes having to meet the revalidation requirements so you can remain on the register.
Every three years, when renewing your registration with the NMC, you'll need to show you're living by the Code’s standards of practice and behaviour. This process is called revalidation. It is about promoting good practice across the whole population of nurses, midwives and nursing associates.
As you approach revalidation, we want to support and guide you to ensure that you have all the information you need. This page covers some of the key things to consider.
Over the next few months, we'll send you more information about what you need to do.
Meeting the requirements
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The requirements for revalidation are the same for everyone on our register. You don't need to meet any specific requirements as a nursing associate.
Find out your revalidation date
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Your revalidation application is due on the first day of the month in which your registration expires.
Your NMC Online account will show your renewal date.
You can submit your revalidation up to 90 days before your revalidation date - you can't submit it any earlier than this. However, your practice hours and CPD can be prepared before this date and should reflect your practice as a nursing associate.
Revalidating while studying to become a registered nurse
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If you want to keep your nursing associate registration, you'll need to revalidate as a nursing associate.
If you're studying on a nursing pre-registration programme, you can still revalidate your nursing associate registration as long as you can meet all the requirements for revalidation in a nursing associate role.
We don't require you to maintain your registration as a nursing associate while you're on your programme. This means you should be regarded as a student nurse, not a registered nursing associate, during your supernumerary practice placements.
However, your education provider may require you to maintain your registration for the duration of your programme, so you should check this with them.
Practice hours
Your practice hours for your revalidation as a nursing associate have to be gained while practicing as a nursing associate and not as a student nurse.
You can use any practice hours undertaken as a nursing associate, either before or after your registered nurse programme, or working as a bank nursing associate during your three year period.
You can't use your nursing training hours to maintain your registration as a nursing associate.
If you complete your nursing course before you revalidate, you will not need to meet the practice hours requirements for your new registration as a registered nurse until the end of your next revalidation cycle.
CPD
The requirement for continuing professional development (CPD) is 35 hours in total and 20 of these hours must be participatory.
This means you have to undertake activity that involves interaction with one or more other professionals. This can be in a physical environment or a virtual one – you don’t have to be in the same room as the people you undertake the activity with.
It doesn't have to be a study day either. It could be a meeting arranged with colleagues outside of everyday practice to discuss learning from a recent event or to talk about new ways of working.
What's important is that you evidence this event to discuss as part of your reflective discussion or show your confirmer.
Reflective discussion
As a student nurse, your tutor can do your reflective discussion if they are a nurse, midwife or nursing associate on our register.
Find out more about reflective discussion
If you can't meet the requirements
If you can't meet the requirements to revalidate your nursing associate registration (for example, because you have not practised as a nursing associate in the last three years), you will need to let your nursing associate registration lapse.
You will have to apply for new registration as a nurse when you have completed your pre-registration nursing programme. Then you will revalidate as a registered nurse for the first time, three years after the date on which you join the nursing part of the register.
If you want to rejoin the nursing associate part of the register, you will need to meet the readmission requirements.
Resources and templates
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There are lots of resources and templates available on our website to help you.
Revalidation story so far
We asked Susie, one of the first nursing associates to join our register, to share her experiences of preparing for revalidation.
Read Susie's revalidation story so far.
Helping nursing associates prepare for revalidation
In this webinar for nursing associates we cover some of the key things you need to consider before you revalidate.
We have lots of resources to help you get the best from revalidation.
Download resources and templates
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