When students apply to join our register, we need to make sure that they have the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver safe, kind, and effective care. In order for them to gain those skills and knowledge, we have education programme standards that set out how nursing and midwifery programmes should be delivered to ensure that programmes leading to registration are fit for purpose.

Some of the content in our pre-2023 programme standards were underpinned by EU law – specifically an EU Directive. Since the UK has left the EU, we now have the flexibility to set the pre-registration programme standards for nursing and midwifery programmes.

We wanted to make sure that students have the right knowledge and skills they need to deliver high quality care, so we decided to review our programme standards to understand if there was any benefit to amending them.

How we reviewed our education standards