Regulating the midwives of today and the future
As the professional regulator of midwives, we support midwives to deliver safe and effective midwifery care through our regulatory processes.
Practising as a midwife in the UK outlines our approach to the regulation of midwives. It brings together in one place all of the information for midwives, women and families, and anyone else with an interest in midwifery in the UK.
Standards for Midwives are our bespoke education and proficiency standards that set the foundations for midwives’ education. They establish what we expect a new midwife to know, understand and be capable of doing, at the start of their career.
Our standards sit alongside the Code, which outlines the standards of behaviour and conduct expected of professionals on our register, and our standards for revalidation, which promote lifelong learning.
Revalidation helps make sure midwives keep up to date, and continue to develop their midwifery knowledge and expertise, to maintain excellent standards of practice.
What you can expect from your midwife
It's important that everyone feels confident about the care they can expect from the midwives on our register.
We've introduced standards for midwifery in the UK, supporting them to deliver safe, effective, and kind care now and in the future. As a result, our midwives are at the forefront of improving people's health and wellbeing.
We've made a short animation to help you understand what you can expect from your midwife.
Midwifery as a protected function and title
Midwifery is a protected function in the UK, meaning it's a criminal offence for any person other than a registered midwife, or a registered medical practitioner, to attend on a woman in childbirth (except in emergencies or when in training as a student midwife or medical student).
It's also a criminal offence for someone to falsely represent themselves as being on our register and use the protected title of ‘Midwife’, or falsely represent themselves as possessing midwifery qualifications.
Foundations of our midwifery work
To deliver our vision, we need to be strategic, responsive, and proactive, ensuring the specific needs of the midwifery profession are articulated and visible in all our work as a regulator.
We’re focused on strengthening and reinforcing a consistent approach to midwifery across all of our activities.
NMC Council
Dr Margaret McGuire a Midwife and a member of our Council.
Midwifery Strategic advisory group (MSAG)
The Midwifery Strategic Advisory Group (MSAG) plays an important role in providing advice to the Executive Board. It meets four times a year and the discussions and debates inform Executive Board and Council decisions in relation to midwifery.
The midwifery team
We have three full time members of the Midwifery Team
Tracey MacCormack Assistant Director for Midwifery
tracey.maccormack@nmc-uk.org
Dr Jacqui Williams, Senior Midwifery Advisor (Education)
jacqui.williams@nmc-uk.org
Verena Wallace, Senior Midwifery Advisor (Policy)
Verena.wallace@nmc-uk.org
Our backgrounds cover all aspects of midwifery practice including clinical, management, education and policy.
Together we ensure that midwifery is considered as a profession across the NMC and advise on midwifery matters. We regularly engage with a wide range of stakeholders to support the wider work of midwifery inform our regulatory functions and protect the safety of women, newborn babies and their families.
If you would like to get in touch please email us.
Midwifery education
Lead midwives for education (LMEs) are employed by approved education institutions (AEIs) that provide pre-registration midwifery programmes.
We hold two meetings a year with the Lead Midwives for Education Strategic Reference Group (LMESRG) to discuss topics around midwifery education. Those conversations inform our work around the standards and quality assurance.
Mapping exercises
In March 2026, we published the following two mapping exercises related to our Standards of proficiency for midwifery:
Independent mapping exercise
We commissioned the UK Network of Professors in Midwifery and Maternal and Newborn Health to review and reverse-map our Standards against recommendations from recent UK maternity reviews.
The report provides assurance that the recommendations that related to the work of midwives within the seven reviews we identified, can all be mapped to the Standards of proficiency for midwives and relevant practice elements of the Standards for pre-registration midwifery programmes.
As the recommendations and standards are reflective of how education and practice is being delivered, we will consider how standards are being implemented following the completion of all exercises in this section.
Curricula mapping
We mapped the curricula for all UK universities that provide midwifery education to the key themes of the NMC standards of proficiency for midwives in order to assess the alignment of midwifery education programmes. We additionally reviewed all submitted module specifications and reading lists.
The review of the data submitted has not identified any concerns with the midwifery programmes across the UK and it demonstrated clearly how they are meeting the requirements of the NMC Standards of proficiency for midwives.
We found no evidence that a normal birth ideology was being taught within pre-registration midwifery programmes. The midwifery team noted that whilst some AEIs had essential reading lists that suggested contemporary text, some still recommended text that used older midwifery terminology.
AEIs should ensure they are using the language of the Standards of proficiency to avoid terminology being misunderstood. We wrote to all Lead Midwives for Education to share our findings.
Further details about both reports can be found in the midwifery quarterly report in our March 2026 Council papers (page 46).
Communicating with midwives
Our quarterly newsletter highlights what we’re doing to support you, and features midwives from across the UK.
