If you have completed an NMC-approved pre-registration nurse, midwife or nursing associate programme, we will accept this as evidence that you have the necessary knowledge of English.
If you did not complete an NMC-approved pre-registration programme we need to be satisfied that your programme demonstrates that you have the necessary knowledge of English.
In a country where English is a majority spoken language
If you completed your programme in a country where English is a majority spoken language, you will need to provide evidence that your programme meets the criteria set out in our guidance.
In a country where English is not a majority spoken language
If you completed your programme in a country where English is not a majority spoken language, you can provide supporting information from your UK employer (SIFE) as supplementary evidence of clinical interaction in English with people who use services, their families, carers, and other healthcare professionals.
To do this, you must:
- be working in a non-registered role in a health or care setting in the UK at the point you submit your application
- have worked in that role for at least 12 months full time (or full time equivalent if working part time) at the point you submit your application
- have had an NMC registrant as your line manager in this role, and had the same line manager for at least 6 months (we will accept supporting information from up to two NMC-registered line managers to cover 12 months or full time equivalent).
The supporting information you provide must be from your current employer. Your line manager will be asked to provide information via a link to NMC online to confirm direct experience of your English language competence in this domain. Your line manager should be an NHS Band 6 (or non-NHS equivalent) or above. This information also needs be countersigned by an NMC registrant who is an NHS Band 8a (or non-NHS equivalent) or above, to confirm the process has been fair and consistent.
We’ll also ask for evidence that your training and assessment was in English. A transcript from your university can be used for this.
If are unable to meet the requirements above, you will need to provide an alternative type of evidence such as a language test.
If you submitted your registration application before 27 May 2023 you will not be able to nominate your manager via NMC online for SIFE. The International Registration Team will contact such applicants directly if they meet our eligibility criteria for using SIFE after their submitted application has been assessed by an officer. We will also continue to manually process the SIFE form from employers who have already been sent the PDF version.
