A nurse, midwife or nursing associate must have the skills, knowledge, health and character to do their job safely and effectively.

We call this being fit to practise and it’s our role as regulator to make sure that a nurse, midwife or nursing associate’s fitness to practise meets our standards.

Our expectations are set out in The Code which describes the professional standards that nurses, midwives and nursing associates must meet in order to be registered with us to practise in the UK.

Examples of referrals we wouldn't be able to look into:

• concerns about organisations like hospitals or NHS Trusts
• concerns about to customer service or consumer issues like refunds.

Examples of outcomes we can't provide:

• we can't instruct a person on our register to make changes to a report or to the treatment they are offering a service user.
• we can't fine a person on our register or make arrangements for compensation
• we can't make a person on our register apologise.
   

If you're not sure the NMC is the right place to raise your concern, or want to know more about the fitness to practise process, we can help you. 

Find out more about what the NMC can do, and the fitness to practise process

Specialist community public health nurse includes health visitors, school nurses, occupational health nurses and family health nurses.

If your concern is about another type of health professional you could:

• complain to the person’s place of work
• complain to the regulator for that type of health professional. We’ve listed these below.

We know that most people won't be familiar with our fitness to practise process. But throughout it, you might need to give us more details in writing, talk through your experience with a member of our team or receive written information from us.

We know that these things can be difficult for some people, and we want to provide you with the best support possible. For example, some people might want to only talk to us over the phone or have someone to support them through our process, like an advocate.

We've got lots of information on our website about the process that we'd recommend looking at before submitting your concerns. It'll help give you an idea of what to expect and what support you might need.

We'll normally need to contact you to ask for more information about the concern you’ve raised with us today.

We use your contact details to keep you updated on our investigation, but we never share your contact details with anyone else.

When using your information, we’ll follow our privacy notice and Fitness to Practise information handling guidance.

We'll consider anonymous referrals (where you don’t provide us with your name), but this will make it more difficult for us to investigate and might mean we can’t take any action. If you make an anonymous referral you won’t receive any updates from us about our investigation or the outcome.

Accessibility

We’re committed to making sure that our processes are accessible for everyone.

Please let us know if you have a disability or injury and you need any adjustments.
 

It’s usually a good idea to start by getting in touch with the nurse, midwife or nursing associate’s place of work, as the employer is best placed to resolve issues quickly and fairly.

They can give you a detailed explanation of what happened and an apology if appropriate. We can’t provide you with either of these things.

If you don't agree with their decision, you can still involve us later

Find out more about raising a concern with a nurse, midwife or nursing associate's place of work.

Do you have any documents you want to upload?

For example, you could attach your letter or email of complaint, and any replies.

If you’re raising a concern for someone else like a friend, family member or neighbour, please let us know.

We’ll contact them and make sure they’re happy for you to act on their behalf. Choose ‘no’ if you’re acting for yourself, or if you’re acting on behalf of someone you look after, like your child.

Accessibility

We’re committed to making sure that our processes are accessible for everyone.

If the person you're acting for has a disability or injury, please tell us if they need any adjustments.

This could include receiving our information in an alternative format (for example, large print or audio).

If you're raising a concern about more than one nurse, midwife or nursing associate, you can add their details below.

On this page you're able to tell us more about the events that have led to your concern.

Please give details, such as the ward name in a hospital or the room within a nursing home. We need accurate information to look at your concern and, if appropriate, do something about it.

Do you have any files to upload?

Please attach any of the following documents to help us understand what happened:

• Any photos of the incident
• Relevant medical records
• Copies of concerns you've raised and any replies you have received

Please make sure that you've removed any password protection when you upload the files.

Less than 1% of the professionals on our register are subject to a complaint each year, but when things go wrong we want to understand the wider context in which it happened.

We're committed to enabling a culture of openness and learning, so we can consider if any future changes would help ensure safe, effective and kind care to keep people safe.

Your answers will help us consider all the factors that can affect someone’s performance, consider any wider factors that could affect public safety, and consider whether the person’s fitness to practice could be affected.

Providing this information will help improve our decision making and reduce the impact of the process on everyone involved.

Telling us about anyone else who was there will help us investigate what happened.

Please note that where you provide contact information for witnesses, we may contact them without first telling you.

If your concerns are about care that you’ve received, we might need to ask for your medical records as part of our investigation. This can help us to fully consider the concerns about the care you received.

We we'll never share these records outside of our investigation, but we may need to share your records with the nurse, midwife or nursing associate and any representative acting for them.

By agreeing below, you give us your permission to share the information you’ve included in this form, and any other information you provide during our investigations.

We can disclose this information to the nurse, midwife or nursing associate, their employer and any other relevant party we identify.

You can make a referral without giving us permission to share information. But if we think the public might be at risk because of the information you’ve given us, we’ll sometimes share the information in your referral with the relevant parties.

We'll explain this to you if we think we may need to do this. 

We'll use your information in accordance with our privacy notice and our Fitness to Practise information handling guidance.