Nursing and Midwifery Council

Sir Jim Mackey, NHS Chief Executive, NHS England, 2026.

Professional regulators, including the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the General Medical Council maintain separate disciplinary processes that can result in suspension or erasure from professional registers, effectively ending careers in healthcare.

A single instance of unauthorized access, if documented, can trigger cascading consequences across employment, criminal, and professional accountability systems.

What this means for patients.

And it was only after a successful legal challenge by the Free Speech Union that they dropped that.

We've seen a similar policy adopted by the Nursing and Midwifery Council as well within the NHS.

So it's just completely absurd that the government thinks that by saying, oh, it's non-statutory, you won't have that much.

Well, what's the point of it then? Surely you want it to have an effect.

Shame on me.

And the Nursing and Midwifery Council taken over by the government in 2001.

But the GMC that is keeping all the doctors registered, they actually invest.

They have a company that invest for them and they invest in drugs, medical machinery.

I'm sorry that we're therefore unable to contribute on this occasion.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council told us, we look into concerns raised about professionals on the register, something which affects a tiny minority of people.

As such, we don't provide training of midwives and student midwives, so we're not best placed to contribute to your programme.

They suggested we contacted NHS England or individual hospital trusts or health boards.

It's revolutionary.

Any health care professional on a UK statutory register, so we are talking the Nursing and Midwifery Council or the Health and Care Professions Council, is now legally empowered to act as a principal investigator.

So that opens the door for specialist nurses, senior physiotherapists, advanced clinical practitioners to actually lead the research they are delivering.

But I do want to push back on the practicalities of this a bit.

Hello, this is Roy Lilley.

Yesterday I wrote about the NMC, Nursing and Midwifery Council.

I now realise I should have first gone to B&Q for some scaffolding poles to shore up my inbox.

Wow.

If the NMC was a company, it would be Thames Water or a firm of heavy-handed debt collectors chasing a parking fine.

They're like the Millwall Football Club of the NHS.

Nobody likes us and we don't care.

And to add to the odium...

[outro jingle] Hello, this is Roy Lilley.

There's something about the NMC that reminds me of a concierge desk in the mahogany lobby of an aging hotel.

An impressive frontage, elaborate procedures, nothing happens until someone dings the bell and waits until an elderly figure shuffles in to reluctantly pass a room key from a hook to your hand.

Nursing regulation roots back to 1919.

Registration established qualifications and standards with the possibility of removal for misconduct.

It was a substantial advance in public protection, which is withering on an ancient vine.

Today's NMC opened for business on the 1st of April 2002.

Twenty-four years later, we all can see its approach to public protection belongs to another age.