PSA response to NMC's statement on registration process issue

In February 2026, the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) notified us that a substantial number of health and criminal conviction declarations were not handled in line with its published guidance on registration and revalidation. The NMC informed us that this had been ongoing for 12 years. This raises a public protection risk because declarations made by some applicants and professionals were not consistently referred to an Assistant Registrar as they should have been. 

The NMC has undertaken a review of all the applications affected and has set out its next steps regarding the 421 cases where further investigations are required. Since informing us of the issue, the NMC has provided weekly updates on its review. This transparency has been important to allow us to have sight of the progress the NMC is making to remedy the situation in the interests of public protection while being mindful of the wellbeing of the professionals involved.

This is a serious failure at a scale which brings significant risk to public protection and undermines the integrity of the NMC’s register. While the NMC has responded following this discovery, it is also vital to fully understand how this could happen and for urgent and effective steps to be taken to make sure its regulatory operations work effectively. It is crucial that issues such as this are not allowed to happen again. The NMC has put in place measures aimed at achieving this and we will monitor these actions as part of our 2025/26 performance review, which covers the period January - December 2026.

We have taken this issue into account as part of our 2024/25 performance review which will be published shortly. However, we will consider the effectiveness of the NMC’s actions to address the public protection risk and improve its systems more fully in our 2025/26 performance review.

ENDS

Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care

Contact: media@professionalstandards.org.uk