Get your MP to help

Many of you have said you are willing to write to your Member of Parliament in order to try to raise the profile of the issues we are raising.

If you are unsure who your MP is or what their address is, this site will tell you.

 

Please use the following template:

Dear [Name of MP],

I am writing to you as a member of the voluntary support group NMCWatch: Registrant Care, to ask for your urgent support in addressing serious concerns about the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and its handling of Fitness to Practise (FtP) investigations.

NMCWatch supports over 900 nurses and midwives who are currently, or have been, under investigation by the NMC. Many of our members are whistleblowers who raised patient safety concerns and were subsequently referred to the regulator by their employers. Instead of being protected, they have faced prolonged, damaging and often unjust regulatory processes that have had devastating personal and professional consequences.

The NMC’s Role and Where It Is Failing

The NMC has two core duties:

1. Maintaining the register of nurses and midwives, which should be a straightforward administrative function.
2. Protecting the public through Fitness to Practise regulation, by investigating concerns fairly, proportionately and in a timely manner.

It is this second duty that is failing.

We are not seeking to protect unsafe practitioners. However, the current system causes widespread and unnecessary harm to nurses and midwives who are innocent of wrongdoing, while doing little to improve patient safety.

Common problems we see include:

• Excessive delays: FtP cases often take years to complete. During this time registrants are unable to work fully, if at all, and live under constant threat to their livelihood and reputation. The NMC claim to be making improvements in this area and yet there is a lack of transparency over how the data for these improvements is being presented. Whilst the PSA advisory Group hold some governance over monitoring this work, they hold no power to impose if failings continue. 
• Lack of fairness and natural justice: Referrers’ accounts are routinely treated as credible while registrants are assumed to be unreliable, even where evidence of false or misleading statements exists.
• No meaningful safeguards for mental health: Many members suffer severe anxiety, depression and trauma. Some never return to the profession even after being found to have “No Case to Answer”.
• Poor treatment of minority groups: BAME, LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse registrants are disproportionately affected.
• Failure to protect whistleblowers: A large percentage of our members raised patient safety concerns and were then referred to the NMC in retaliation. To date the NMC fails to have a vexatious referral policy and treats all referrals as genuine even when given strong evidence by the registrant of their retaliative nature. 
• Lack of transparency and neutral investigation: Evidence that supports registrants is often overlooked, and investigations are not conducted in a balanced or impartial way. We see many cases that have sat with the NMC for a number of years, even with the expense of being outsourced to Capsticks and Weightman’s, and the case management, presentation and preparation at hearing is severely lacking. This begs the questions as to who is auditing the quality of the work done by these firms.  

Despite repeated assurances from the NMC that it is improving, the same issues have persisted for over a decade. The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has repeatedly found the NMC to be failing key standards, particularly around timeliness, yet there has been little accountability.

Decommissioning of the Omambala Review and Financial Concerns

In 2023 the NMC commissioned Ijeoma Omambala KC to conduct independent reviews of fitness to practise cases raised by an NMC whistleblower, and our handling of the whistleblowing itself. The agreed plan was to receive the reports in early 2024. There were many delays and eventually in July 2025 the NMC announced they were recommissioning this work to alternative law firms. We have reason to believe that this was a tactical move in order to ensure the narrative was controlled. Whilst the NMC deny this, many of us remain unconvinced. The message was that Ijeoma was unable to complete the work due to personal circumstances, however we know she merely asked for a 2 week delay whilst on bereavement leave, something that would have had little immediate impact considering the previous delays of 2 years but may have impacted the NMC’s public relations campaign or restoring faith in the regulator.

Putting aside the motivation behind the recommissioning, the substantial sums of registrants’ fees which have been mis-spent on this work is deeply concerning. Huge additional sums have been spent on recurrent contracts to external legal and consultancy firms with no demonstrable improvement in fairness, timeliness or outcomes. Nurses and midwives are facing a potential increase in registration fees with no say over how those fees are spent or any reassurance of quality of the work provided. Despite external law firms being used, cases are still coming to hearing poorly prepared, with incomplete evidence and a lack of thorough investigation. 

We know of the following contracts over the last couple of years:

1. Price Waterhouse and Cooper – £9million
2. Nazir Afzal OBE Rise Associates Independent Culture review – £96,000
3. Ijeoma Omambalu investigation  £100,000 – decommissioned 

During this investigation the following was also spent:

– Sally Cowan – £1,050

– Jessica Joels – £29,013

(Sally Cowan’s and Jessica Joels’s work was the investigation into Whistleblower 1’s grievance – but this was supposedly being covered by Ijeoma Review and then also Aileen McColgan work) 

– ⁠Ijeoma Omambala KC – £100,000 contract value (we suspect the actual bill is higher otherwise there is no reason not to disclose on commercial interest grounds)

– Aileen McColgan KC – £84,000 (as part of Ijeoma Omambala investigation but only for Whistleblower 1 part of investigation, the part looking at Sam Foster’s treatment was funded in addition to this work)

– Capsticks support for the investigations – £75,000

– Victoria Butler-Cole KC & David Hopkins – £40,338 (who the contract was recommissioned to) 

– Lucy McLynn – £86,214 

4. Capsticks and Weightmans – £14.9million (in addition to above work) 
5. B3Sixty – £30,063 (in addition to that mentioned in 3.)
6. Oct 2024 – June 2026 “legal services“ £84,000
7. 25.11.25 – press office media monitoring services – £88,920  https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/9da25d97-eef6-42e2-823d-cffcb4b29cd9?origin=SearchResults&p=1

Considering the news at the end of last year that the NMC were having to make significant redundancies and also potentially a rise in registrants fees it seems unpalatable that such vast monies are being spent in this way.

At the end of the recommissioned work to Butler Cole/Hopkins and Lucy McLynn the PSA IOG minutes from 3 November say at paragraph 2.3: “The NMC said that the report into whistleblowing amounted to “a clean bill of health” with respect to its management and handling of whistleblowers. The group noted that the report found that the whistleblower “did not suffer any detriment as a consequence of blowing the whistle.” Yet the employment tribunal is still ongoing for this case and the whistleblower maintains she has suffered detriment.

These conclusions contradict the staff survey in Sept 2025 which we have been given access to and shows the following:

This raises serious questions about:

• Value for money and stewardship of charitable funds
• Whether registrant fees are being used in the public interest
• Why repeated external reviews are commissioned and then abandoned without implementation
• No concrete change in culture towards kindness and compassion

Human and Workforce Impact

The consequences are severe:

• Nurses and midwives lose their jobs, homes, pensions, relationships and health.
• 24% of our members who received a “No Case to Answer” outcome did not return to the profession.
• There are currently around 750 registrants subject to Conditions of Practice orders, many of whom cannot secure employment, worsening the staffing crisis.
• Some registrants wish to leave the register entirely, especially those nearing retirement, but are prevented from doing so until the investigation ends, prolonging suffering unnecessarily.

At a time of the biggest workforce crisis in NHS history, this system is actively driving skilled professionals out of nursing and midwifery.

 

Ongoing Investigations 

We understand that is an outstanding investigation still being carried out by the Charity Commission to determine  whether the NMC has met its obligations as a registered charity. There has been no transparency over this investigation. 

The Professional Standards Authority Advisory group has been meeting for the last year with the NMC focussing on their achievements of the suggested action points following the Rise Associates report but no deadline has been set for this work to be completed.

 

Poor culture within legal teams

Whilst there are some very dedicated members of the teams at NMC the general attitude experienced by registrants at hearing, is that the legal teams are very adversarial and only motivated in proving their case. There is a lack of transparency around disclosure of evidence and a defensive attitude by NMC teams v’s a neutral standpoint to determine facts. This results in tactics being used at hearings and appeals that are not in keeping with a compassionate and person centred regulator but instead one that is only focussed on ensuring the NMC standpoint is protected and proven as correct. When the NMC struggle to secure witnesses or evidence the case is extended rather than closed which is again not in keeping with fairness and equality of arms.

 

High Risk of Suicide and mental health impact 

20 nurses and midwives died by suicide during fitness to practise proceedings since 2018.  Five of those deaths happened in 2023-24 alone. We have been told that the NMC are looking for external advice on which deaths they need to report and which they do not – attempting to state that unless the coroner has cited the NMC as a contributory factor then this may not be required. We find this abhorrent if it were true. A regulator committed to safeguarding and improving the behaviours of the past should be ensuring transparency and openness around this issue so that learning can occur and any loss of life minimised as much as possible. Whilst they have the Careline in place, many registrants don’t feel safe to access it fearing their mental health issues will be fed back to the NMC and it affect their case. They have now made links to a wellbeing hub service which is encouraging and the safeguarding hub now assess every registrant who comes in at the point of referral. However due to resources this assessment is then not repeated and the safeguarding teams only initiate in put if they have it highlighted to them that a registrant is struggling. The NMC fails to risk assess factors that may contribute to declining mental health and relied on the registrant or their advocates to escalate if they have concerns. In the Rise Associates report  a mother of one nurse who died by suicide prior to the conclusion of her case held the NMC accountable. Despite this we see no transparency over the lessons learnt from this case and the other 19 suicides.

The NMC has in place a Safeguarding and wellbeing hub – however assessments of risk factors are only done when the NMC receives the initial referral and based on information received by the referrer rather than a robust assessment to determine real risk. There is no further assessment unless this is escalated to the NMC by representatives. The NMC currently does not flag any risk factors that contribute to suicidal ideation or mental health deterioration even when the registrant provides this to the NMC themselves

 

What We Are Asking You to Do

We respectfully ask you to raise these concerns with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Health and Social Care Select Committee, and to support urgent legislative reform so that:

1. Registrants’ mental health is safeguarded throughout FtP investigations with regular risk assessments by trained personnel
2. A nurse or midwife can voluntarily remove themselves from the register without restriction, during an investigation, protecting their right to private and family life while still safeguarding the public.
3. Strict time limits are introduced, so that if key evidence is not obtained within six months, the case is closed.
4. Registrants who are found to have “No Case to Answer” receive a formal statement clearing their name.
5. Those subject to Interim Conditions of Practice receive robust support to help them remain in employment wherever possible.
6. High court extension applications should be used as an opportunity to accurately reassess the level of risk and not just used as an automated renewal process unless challenged by the registrant. 
7. Referral sources are recorded and monitored, so employers who misuse the FtP process can be identified and challenged.
8. The NMC is required to publish data on how many registrants leave the profession following FtP, and how many cannot work due to Conditions of Practice.
9. Parliament scrutinises the NMC’s spending, including external contracts and abandoned reviews, to ensure registrants’ fees are used ethically and effectively. 
10. All deaths prior to conclusion of case are recorded accurately and lessons learnt published

 

The NMC is meant to protect the public, but the current system is harming both patients and professionals. Nurses and midwives deserve a regulator that is fair, humane, transparent and proportionate.

We would be very grateful for your support and would welcome the opportunity to provide further evidence from our members.

 

Yours sincerely,

[Name]
Member, NMCWatch: Registrant Care

cc: support@nmcwatch.org.uk
www.nmcwatch.org.uk