NMC sets out next steps toward change

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has set out the next steps towards change, having accepted all the recommendations of an independent review into its culture.

In the short-term , the NMC will take the following immediate actions, supported by external advice, to help it make the right decisions, address its cultural issues and follow through on change.

• An external Empowered to Speak Up Guardian is now in place to support NMC staff to raise concerns and ensure they get independent support from a trained professional.
• The NMC has invested in a partner to help improve psychological safety within the organisation, starting in Professional Regulation directorate.
• It has started the process of appointing an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) advisor to its executive board, to support decision making.

It has also made some immediate commitments:

• The NMC will co-opt one or more senior independent advisers to the Council to increase the challenge and support that the Council receives, to ensure the necessary cultural changes are delivered and to prevent a recurrence of the findings in the report.
• It has committed to increasing the diversity of its executive board.
• It will double the amount it spends on staff learning and development so that by October 2024, it can roll out improvements in leadership, line management, safeguarding, casework and tackling poor behaviours identified in the report.
• It will develop a competency and behaviour framework, to launch in September, that will support recruitment, career progression and performance management.
• It will offer extended decompression support to staff working on sensitive casework.

In the medium term, the NMC is reviewing its existing plans in light of the independent report’s recommendations. It is also working to enhance its approach to safeguarding, people and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). In the longer term, the organisation will focus on wider culture change, including the full implementation of Nazir Afzal and Rise Associates’ recommendations over a projected two-year period.

Helen Herniman, Acting Chief Executive and Registrar, said, “The independent report on our culture made difficult reading for everyone at the NMC and for many outside our organisation, including our stakeholders, the professionals on the register and members of the public who have engaged in our regulatory work. We are sincerely sorry to everyone we have let down. We are committed to delivering a change programme rooted in the report’s recommendations, and we are confident this will help us to make a step change in both culture and performance."

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Read The Nursing and Midwifery Council Independent Culture Review (9 July 2024)

Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council, 24 July 2024