Committee publication · Correspondence · 10 June 2026
Correspondence from PSA- Review of NMC
Summary
The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) reports to Parliament on its performance review of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for 2025. The PSA found the NMC has failed to meet nine of its 18 Standards of Good Regulation—two more than the previous year—identifying serious weaknesses in regulatory functions including education quality assurance, registration processes, and fitness to practise timeliness. Despite new leadership appointments, the PSA found limited evidence of substantial improvement.
Key findings
- NMC failed nine of 18 regulatory standards in 2025 (up from seven in 2024), indicating deterioration despite new Chief Executive, Registrar, and Chair appointments during the review period.
- Registration process integrity compromised: the registrations team failed to refer high-risk or borderline decisions involving health/criminal convictions to an Assistant Registrar for several years, affecting a significant number of cases.
- Education quality assurance remains high-risk; the NMC has taken very limited action to address concerns flagged in the 2023/24 review.
- Fitness to practise processes show mixed progress: screening-stage timeliness improved but investigations and adjudications remain slow; limited assurance on decision-making quality and poor communication with case parties.
- NMC's reporting transparency is deficient compared to other regulators, and EDI initiatives show limited evidenced impact despite governance improvements.
Tone
CriticalTopics
Key actors
Professional Standards Authority (PSA), Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), Layla Moran MP, Caroline Corby, Ron Barclay-Smith, Nazir Afzal OBE
Notable line
“… the NMC has not met nine of our 18 Standards this year – two more than in the last review period.”
Key Quotes
“The NMC's performance during the review period has caused us considerable concern, and I am writing to you on behalf of the Board of the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) to inform you of the action we are taking, in line with our escalation policy.”
“We have identified weaknesses in multiple regulatory functions during this period which have led us to conclude that the NMC has not met nine of our 18 Standards this year – two more than in the last review period.”
“While we are encouraged by the new leadership's intentions and commitment to change, in the period under review we have not seen evidence of substantial improvement.”
“The NMC notified us that it identified that its registrations team had not been following its process to refer high-risk or borderline decisions involving health and/or criminal conviction declarations to an Assistant Registrar for a decision. This had been ongoing for a number of years and affected a significant number of cases.”
“The NMC's education quality assurance function remains an area of high risk. We highlighted this in our performance review for 2023/24, and we are concerned that the NMC has taken very limited action to address this in”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗