One year of the Safeguarding Hub: Thousands of fitness to practise referrals reviewed

The Safeguarding Hub ensures every FtP referral (new concern raised with us) is assessed by a professional with safeguarding expertise, so potential risks are identified immediately, and the right support can be put in place where needed.

Between September 2024 and July 2025, the hub pre-screened 5,113 new referrals. From those, it identified 1,262 with potential safeguarding concerns – taking those forward for a full review to ensure the right steps are taken to keep people from harm.

In the first quarter of this year alone (April to June), the team pre-screened 1,248 cases, taking nearly a third forward (374) for further assessment.

How the Safeguarding Hub works

All new referrals are reviewed by the safeguarding team. Those with identified risks are escalated into the hub for collective discussion by a multi-professional group with expertise in safeguarding and wellbeing.

This group agrees any actions to reduce risks, such as supporting professionals or witnesses, or liaising with statutory safeguarding agencies. Each case is allocated to a safeguarding adviser, who supports the case team and ensures actions are delivered.

Key to this work is supporting timely, proportionate interim order applications in high-risk cases where professionals’ practice may need to be restricted to protect vulnerable adults, children and the wider public.

The hub also shares safeguarding concerns externally with statutory authorities, ensuring the right agencies are involved at the earliest stage to investigate and manage concerns.

Colleagues across the NMC can request advice any time they have a safeguarding concern, whether in FtP or other areas of our regulatory work. Between April 2024 and March 2025, colleagues made 644 advice requests – a clear sign of growing awareness and confidence in recognising and escalating concerns within our work.

Expanding safeguarding expertise

There has been substantial investment in the NMC’s Safeguarding Team over the past year. We have recruited senior advisers, an educator and a mental health practitioner. The team works directly with other colleagues to help them manage and respond to any wellbeing or safeguarding risk relating to registrants going through our processes.

Alongside the hub, we’ve refreshed the Safeguarding Board, which provides strategic oversight for safeguarding – reporting to the Executive Board and our Council to ensure effective governance.

We’ve developed new safeguarding principles, updated guidance for staff, and begun rolling out new training. This is helping colleagues across the NMC to recognise, respond and escalate safeguarding concerns when necessary.

Feedback from colleagues and safeguarding professionals has highlighted the hub’s value in spotting risks earlier, supporting the progression of investigations, and building stronger collaboration with safeguarding partners to protect the public.

Donna O’Boyle, Acting Executive Director of Professional Practice at the NMC, said:

“The Safeguarding Hub has made a real difference in its first year – enabling us to identify risks sooner and take action to keep people from harm.

“When professionals or members of the public are involved in our processes, they can now have more assurance that we will support them effectively by ensuring that any safeguarding issues are identified and addressed at the earliest stage.

“We’re determined to build on this foundation, and over the next year the hub will continue to evolve to ensure best practice approaches and oversight for our most complex safeguarding cases across the business. This will mean even greater consistency in how we assess and respond to safeguarding concerns, so we can continue to protect the public and support professionals involved in our processes.”

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