Major strides towards new NMC one year on from independent review

We have embarked on a radical turnaround to build a new NMC after accepting the recommendations from the Independent Culture Review (ICR), published in July 2024.

We have incorporated the ICR recommendations into our Culture Transformation and Fitness to Practise plans. We have made major strides through these plans, including completing 24 of the 37 recommendations, with several key highlights.

• We have introduced a safeguarding hub: all new fitness to practise referrals are now reviewed so that safeguarding risks are identified straight away, and support can be put in place for professionals where safeguarding concerns are identified. There has also been substantial investment in the NMC’s Safeguarding team.
• We have signed the UNISON Anti-Racism Charter and developed an anti-racist action plan from this – setting ambitious new equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) targets to eliminate bias from our regulatory processes and drive fairness for our staff. We are taking steps to reduce our ethnicity pay gap, and have re-focused our staff mentoring programme, Rising Together, to ensure that 80 percent of participants are from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds.
• We have increased ethnic diversity among fitness to practise panel members – 24 percent of lay panel members and 23 percent of registrant panel members are now from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds, respectively. We will continue working to diversify our panel member pool.
• We have rolled out one of the most ambitious coaching programmes ever undertaken by a regulator. Coaching is being delivered to all people managers on embedding EDI, values-based decision making, ensuring psychological safety and enjoying work; and to senior managers on strong and effective leadership.

Further recommendations under way include ongoing work to eliminate the backlog in screening – the initial assessment stage of the fitness to practise (FtP) process.

There has been significant improvement, whereby we made an average of 737 screening decisions per month between January and June 2025, compared to 553 per month in the previous six months (July to December 2024).

The monthly rolling average for completing cases end-to-end within 15 months has improved from 60.8 percent in July 2023, to 70.4 percent in June 2025 and we continue the work to streamline our FtP processes.

Paul Rees MBE, Chief Executive and Registrar, said:

“The Independent Culture Review marked a turning point for the NMC. Now, under new management, we are delivering a radical turnaround programme. There is a long way to go but we are building a new NMC – one that is fit for the future and which will be better able to fulfil its core purpose of protecting the public.

“The work we have done so far has strengthened our approach to safeguarding, and is improving the timeliness of our case management in fitness to practise.

“We are also rolling out initiatives to build a positive and inclusive culture. This will enable all our staff to thrive and deliver their full potential, for the benefit of the professions we regulate and the public we serve.”

Ron Barclay-Smith, Chair of the Council, said:

“The NMC’s culture is changing and linked to this, our regulatory performance is improving, for the benefit of the public as well as nurses, midwives and nursing associates.

“We will not become complacent. There is a lot of work ahead to fully turn the organisation around. However, the progress one year on from the Independent Culture Review is a positive indicator of things to come, as we transform at pace under new leadership.”

Notes

The Independent Culture Review identified 36 recommendations for the NMC. For tracking progress of the recommendations, we have split 1a and 1b for a total of 37 recommendations.

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