Consultation on improvements to our Fitness to Practise process

The consultation on improvements to our Fitness to Practise rules has now closed.
On 28 April, the NMC Council approved changes to the rules governing our Fitness to Practise process.

Subject to Parliamentary approval, these rules will come into effect from October.
This is part of ongoing efforts to deliver a process that is faster, fairer and more compassionate for the people involved.

The changes will mean we can:

  • Appoint Legally Qualified Chairs (LQCs) to Practice Committee panels, which preside over hearings.
  • Strengthen our case management powers, to enable more proactive case management, with parties given clear expectations on how the hearing will run and specific instructions on how they should prepare.
  • Share information via a digital platform or online account - where the nurse, midwife or nursing associate agrees.
  • Create flexibility in our process, for when the regulator invites representations and the timescales for these, and how much notice it gives of meetings and hearings.
  • Provide better support for witnesses, enabling more people to give their evidence as effectively as possible.

These changes will help us to:

  • Remove unnecessary process delays
  • Free up capacity at the adjudication stage of the process
  • Improve the efficiency of hearings, with fewer delays and adjournments leading to timelier outcomes
  • Be more person-focused by recognising and putting people’s needs at the centre of what can be a distressing process.

The NMC has listened to all the feedback and adjusted its approach in five key areas to ensure reforms are implemented safely and effectively:

  • Phased introduction of legally qualified chairs, with monitoring and safeguards during implementation to avoid any unintended consequences for people's experience of the process
  • Clear powers to change or withdraw directions that have been given for the preparation of cases, such as instructions and deadlines for submitting documents and evidence, to support fairness
  • Keeping minimum notice periods for preliminary meetings – which allow the NMC and the registrant to raise and resolve issues in advance of a full hearing – unless consent is given to shorten the period or the public interest to do so is clear
  • A revised approach to timescales for registrants providing a response to allegations or evidence, keeping the standard 28 days but being clearer about the power to grant an extension
  • Changing the intended new wording on support for witnesses when giving their evidence, moving away from labelling witnesses as “vulnerable” and instead talking about special measures to enable all witnesses to give evidence in the best way that they can.

We consulted on changes to the rules that govern our Fitness to Practise process. This consultation ran for 12 weeks from 3 November 2025 to 26 January 2026.

As part of our journey to build a new NMC, we are delivering steady improvements including:

  • An increase in the rolling average of cases being resolved within our target of 15 months – up from 60.8% in July 2023 to 71.6% in August 2025
  • A record number of decisions being made at screening, bringing the caseload at the initial assessment stage of the process below 2,000 for the first time in five years (1,983 in July 2025).

We are more than 18 months into our Fitness to Practise Plan which has also achieved positive change across safeguarding, at screening and in our approach to adjudications.

We are proposing these improvements to our rules now, ahead of more wide-ranging reforms proposed by the UK Government, who we’ll be working with over the next few years to modernise our legal framework – making our Fitness to Practise process more timely and less adversarial.

We have created this consultation document (Cymraeg) which sets out all the changes we are proposing to our rules. We highly recommend reading this, along with the draft rules, before responding to the consultation.

The changes we are proposing to make to the rules in Fitness to Practise

The changes we would like to make to Fitness to Practise rules would mean we can:

  • Appoint legally qualified chairs to practice committee panels
  • Strengthen our case management powers
  • Share information via a digital platform or online account
  • Create flexibility in our process for when we invite representations and give notice of hearings and meetings
  • Provide better support for vulnerable witnesses giving evidence in our proceedings.


We believe these changes would help make Fitness to Practise faster and fairer.

Supporting improvements to our Fitness to Practise process

This document sets out our policy proposals and the draft changes to our rules

Read more

Draft rules

Draft Rules Amendment Order

Keeling Schedule

This document shows how the affected rules will look if the amendments are made

Frequently asked questions

Commonly asked questions about the proposed changes to our rules

Consultation Easy read

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