NMC launches new equality, diversity and inclusion plan for 2022-2025

Last September our Council agreed four EDI objectives for the NMC. And in May this year, Council approved our EDI plan, which sets out our priorities for 2022-2025 

Everyone deserves safe, effective and kind nursing and midwifery care, and every professional on our register, and every NMC colleague, should be able to do their important work free from bias and discrimination. In launching this plan we recognise our responsibility to address the causes of inequalities, and meaningfully integrate EDI across all our work.  

The priorities and actions set out in this plan were shaped by our legal responsibilities, our data and evidence, information from our professionals, partners and NMC colleagues and wider issues across the health and care sector.  

The purpose of our action plan 

We believe in being person-centred – it’s the way we expect our professionals to deliver care, and how we want to act as a regulator and employer. Our EDI action plan will ensure we’re closer to achieving this consistently by being better able to understand and meet people’s needs. 

Our Code sets out our expectations that professionals should act as advocates, challenge discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, consider cultural sensitivities and treat people fairly. Our EDI plan sets out the ways we are holding ourselves accountable for achieving the same aspirations.  

Our EDI plan also sets out:  

• the actions we’ll take to deliver more equitable experiences for the people who work for us and the professionals registered with us, as well as people who use our services and interact with our professionals and colleagues 
• how we’ll scrutinise our processes and decision-making for nursing and midwifery professionals, and our employees, as well as the work we’ll do with partners 

• how we will build solid internal foundations at the NMC that put us in a better position to respond to the wider external environment. 

Andrea Sutcliffe CBE, Chief Executive and Registrar for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, said: 

“We're clear about our responsibility to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in everything we do as a regulator, and as an employer. We believe in being open about the devastating impact of discrimination, and how its presence in structures and individual actions across health and social care can undermine the safe, effective and kind care everyone has a right to expect. 

“Our priorities over the next three years will continue to be shaped by developments across the sector, including evidence of the experience of people using health and care services and the professionals on our register.  

“We’ve made progress on our EDI work, but we still have much more to do, which is why this is an utmost priority for me and everyone at the NMC. We’re ambitious about what we can achieve through delivery of this plan, working with our partners and the wider sector.” 

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