Nursing regulator "working hard" to overcome "serious problems"

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has accepted there are crucial areas of its practice that need to be addressed in order to fulfil its nursing regulation obligations.

The Council was responding to an interim report from the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE), scheduled for completion in June, that has set out 16 key recommendations on which for the NMC to improve its role.

Intermin chair of the NMC, Professor Judith Ellis, commented: “This interim report emphasises the need for the NMC to focus on its purpose as a regulator and turns a spotlight on serious problems in our governance, financial strategy and management information. We accept the report’s findings in its entirety and we are already working hard to address the recommendations.”

Professor Ellis also said: “Moving forward, it is clear that the NMC must be a very different organisation, committed to effective regulation and putting the needs of patients first. We must be an efficient, effective and economic regulator, and deliver public protection within our means. Together, the Council and executive of the NMC must have an unremitting focus on improvement, so that we can become a regulator that commands greater confidence of the public, nurses and midwives.”

The sixteen recommendations include a consultation with the Department of Health for a smaller Council, that members of the public be invited to ask questions at public sessions, and that Council members should have a clear process by which to raise concerns, as well as the establishment of a ‘visible transition plan’ in order that staff and stakeholders can see what action is being taken.

Chief executive of the CHRE, Harry Cayton, commented: “There are serious problems but we acknowledge the effort the Council, executive team and staff are putting into managing this transition. We hope that our recommendations will allow the NMC to act rapidly to recruit a new Chair and Chief Executive and so give staff and registrants the settled leadership they need and deserve.”