Response to article in The Independent

The Independent has published an article in which it writes that the NMC is ‘accused of covering up secret reports’ and stating that the NMC has ‘refused to publish the internal review highlighting new failures to protect the public.’

For clarity, The Independent asked the NMC about two pieces of work referenced in recent Council papers:

• A safeguarding audit carried out by our Organisational Learning, Quality and Improvement team
• A review of cases undertaken by a specialist advisor in our Professional Practice team.

The NMC explained to The Independent that these were both internal pieces of work and therefore it hadn’t been our intention to publish them, but that they inform our reporting to Council.

We also explained that the audit referred to forms part of a wider piece of work which has not yet concluded. We told The Independent that we would consider what can be shared in line with our FOI obligations and that they would hear back from us on this.

This is portrayed in The Independent’s story as a ‘refusal’ to publish ‘secret reports’.

The Independent also asked the NMC to respond to a comment from Nazir Afzal OBE, which includes, “further scrutiny of progress against the recommendations is required in the absence of an oversight committee.” The NMC provided the following response, which The Independent has not published:

“As well as our public reporting to Council, we report on progress against the recommendations and other commitments to an independent oversight group. This includes the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), Department of Health and Social Care, the Chief Nursing Officers and patient groups. We’ve attended four oversight group meetings so far and the next one is in January. Minutes are published on the PSA website.”

The pieces of work underlying the article in The Independent form part of our wider safeguarding improvements and we will be bringing a paper to Open Council in March on the changes we intend to make, or have made, in our approach to safeguarding.

We remain committed to transparent reporting of our progress on safeguarding and against the recommendations from the independent culture review, both in our reporting to Council and to the Independent Oversight Group.

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