• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Fitness To Practise Guide

  • GMC Fitness To Practise
  • Covid-19 & Fitness to Practise
  • Contact

How the NMC will continue to regulate during Covid-19

The NMC is making operational changes during the Covid-19 pandemic, to prioritise core regulatory functions and ensure it continues to regulates effectively.

You are here: Home / NMC / How the NMC will continue to regulate during Covid-19

21st March 2020 by fitness2padmin 1 Comment

The NMC is making some operational changes during the Covid-19 pandemic, to prioritise its core regulatory functions and ensure it continues to regulate nurses, midwives and nursing associates effectively.  

Like everyone else, nurses, midwives and nursing associates will be affected by the virus and may be ill, have to self-isolate or care for others. The NMC are therefore anticipating a reduction in capacity and are also following government guidance to support NMC colleagues to work at home as far as possible, and minimise non-essential travel for the people who work with us.

Many of the NMC’s registrants will be heavily involved in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and maintaining vital health and social care services under immense pressure. The NMC said it needs to make sure that they are minimising burdens on busy professionals.

The NMC’s priorities in these unprecedented circumstances are:

  • maintaining our important role in protecting the public and promoting public confidence in nursing and midwifery
  • ensuring we continue to register the right people swiftly – the health and social care system needs nurses, midwives and nursing associates more than ever now
  • playing our part in the actions needed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic
  • looking after our colleagues to make sure people are safe and we can continue to operate effectively.

NMC’s statement:

Operational changes as a result of coronavirus

Registration and revalidation

Emergency Covid-19 temporary register

The government is working on emergency legislation that allows us to create an emergency Covid-19 temporary register, separate to our permanent register. Further information about this will be made available very shortly. Find out more about the emergency Covid-19 temporary register.

UK registration

We are continuing as normal with applications to join and re-join the register. Most customers shouldn’t notice any interruption to our services, but with more NMC staff working from home than usual, there may be minor delays to our processing, which we will keep to a minimum.

Overseas registration

We are continuing to process applications from overseas applicants wishing to join our register. We are working with our OSCE test delivery partners to ensure the test centres remain open and measures are put in place to keep staff and candidates safe. Currently all three of our test centres have capacity to take new bookings and accommodate resits.

Find out more about Test of Competence changes

Test of Competence review

We continue to work closely with our design and delivery partners to launch our new Test of Competence in the summer and we are currently on track. However we have cancelled our remaining engagement events and webinars.

Find out more about the Test of Competence review.

Revalidation deadlines

From this month we are extending the revalidation period for current registered nurses. This means they will each have an additional three months from their current revalidation application date to complete their application. This is as flexible as we can be under our current legislation, so we are seeking further flexibility from the government for the future. We will give an update on this soon.

Registration data

The next report on the data from our register was scheduled for May and has now been postponed until further notice. We will keep responding to individual data requests from key stakeholders as a matter of priority.

For further information about registration and revalidation, please contact UKenquiries@nmc-uk.org.

Education and standards

Quality assurance of education

We are continuing our quality assurance of education. This includes approval visits where education institutions have not deferred their visit. These events are being done remotely.

We also continue to work with institutions to ensure they continue to meet our standards.

Implementation of our new standards

During this period we will continue to provide information, and develop resources for those education institutions and stakeholders who will be implementing our new standards.

Post-registration standards

We will continue to work on the development of our post-registration standards internally. Where appropriate we will liaise with stakeholders remotely, and continue to work on the evidence that underpins this work. When the emergency situation is lifted our engagement with stakeholders will resume to ensure their views are considered fully.

Fitness to practise

We have identified four essential fitness to practise services that we must continue to deliver:

  1. Logging and risk assessing any new referrals, and any new information on existing referrals
  2. Interim order applications and review hearings
  3. Substantive order review hearings
  4. High Court or Court of Sessions interim order extension applications.

All other face-to-face hearings are being postponed and no new ones will be scheduled until further notice – this allows us to prioritise interim order and substantive order reviews.

We are considering arrangements to progress as many cases as possible by meetings (hearings on the papers) or by virtual hearings. We will communicate arrangements directly to the people involved in individual cases.

All other casework will continue to the best of our ability in these difficult circumstances. We are changing our approach to seeking information from employers – we will only ask them for information if it is essential for immediate risk management. This means that we may not be able to progress some cases for the time being – if this happens we will communicate with those involved and support them as best we can.

Our Employer Link Service has postponed all planned learning sessions (stakeholder meetings will continue remotely). Meanwhile all planned public support service meetings will go ahead but will happen remotely rather than face-to-face.

If you are currently involved in a fitness to practise case and would like further clarification, please contact your named case officer.

Employers seeking more information should please contact employerlinkservice@nmc-uk.org.

Recruitment

We have temporarily suspended all recruitment to the NMC, to help ensure we focus all available resources on delivering our core regulatory work effectively. All job adverts and interviews are postponed until further notice, and our recruitment team will be in touch with current applicants with more information.

Opening hours

Our contact centre will remain open to answer calls and emails from 08:00–17:45 Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

To help protect people from the spread of coronavirus, our office buildings will be closed to visitors until further notice.

NMC NMC

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest Tweets

#Covid19F2P

KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
25 Nov

Contextual factors in fitness to practise during Covid19 - Fitness To Practise Guide

Contextual factors in fitness to practise is not new but Covid has laid bare the reality of medical practice, difficult decisions & stressful workplaces.

https://buff.ly/3mafIaH #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1331685630087204864Retweet on Twitter 1331685630087204864Like on Twitter 1331685630087204864Twitter 1331685630087204864
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
25 Nov

The future looks bright – Fitness to Practise beyond Covid - Fitness To Practise Guide

Whilst there are many things about Covid that is devastating, a positive is that it forced healthcare regulators to reform, adapt and do so quickly.

https://buff.ly/39d1GBy #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1331685300620447744Retweet on Twitter 1331685300620447744Like on Twitter 1331685300620447744Twitter 1331685300620447744
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
23 Sep

New GMC Fitness to Practise in Covid Guidance

New #GMC advice for “decision makers” in determining how to assess public protection risk in allegations of impaired #fitnesstopractise in a clinical setting during the Covid-19 pandemic. #Covid19F2P

https://buff.ly/32MxhGv

Reply on Twitter 1308695359796006915Retweet on Twitter 1308695359796006915Like on Twitter 1308695359796006915Twitter 1308695359796006915
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
11 May

Kings View Chambers setup to support healthcare professions

@KVChambersLtd are setup to support & represent healthcare professionals with remote hearings whilst #fitnesstopractise hearings are postponed due to the #coronavirus pandemic.

More: https://buff.ly/2xD9E6l #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1259773002851352578Retweet on Twitter 1259773002851352578Like on Twitter 1259773002851352578Twitter 1259773002851352578
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
15 Apr

Kings View Chambers setup to support healthcare professions

@KVChambersLtd are setup to support & represent healthcare professionals with remote hearings whilst #fitnesstopractise hearings are postponed due to the #coronavirus pandemic.

More: https://buff.ly/2xD9E6l #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1250355743967956992Retweet on Twitter 1250355743967956992Like on Twitter 1250355743967956992Twitter 1250355743967956992
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
10 Apr 2020

#GMC to ‘limit impact’ of FTP during Covid-19 pandemic

The GMC will only make fitness to practise information requests to doctors during the Covid-19 pandemic if there is 'an immediate patient safety concern'.

More here: https://buff.ly/2ypZqX9 #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1248553576630272000Retweet on Twitter 1248553576630272000Like on Twitter 1248553576630272000Twitter 1248553576630272000
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
8 Apr 2020

NHS England ‘pauses’ complaints during Covid-19

NHS will supporting a 'system-wide pause' on the NHS complaints, including the suspension of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman complaints.

More here: https://buff.ly/347yoj4 #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1247873598225817601Retweet on Twitter 1247873598225817601Like on Twitter 1247873598225817601Twitter 1247873598225817601
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
1 Apr 2020

Kings View Chambers setup to support healthcare professions

@KVChambersLtd are setup to support & represent healthcare professionals with remote hearings whilst #fitnesstopractise hearings are postponed due to the #coronavirus pandemic.

More: https://buff.ly/2xD9E6l #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1245283528637644800Retweet on Twitter 1245283528637644800Like on Twitter 1245283528637644800Twitter 1245283528637644800
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
1 Apr 2020

Coronavirus: NHS doctors ‘gagged’ over protective equipment shortages | The Independent

#Covid19F2P https://buff.ly/39sx8Z7

Reply on Twitter 1245251583274876929Retweet on Twitter 1245251583274876929Like on Twitter 1245251583274876929Twitter 1245251583274876929
KVChambersLtdKings View Chambers@KVChambersLtd·
26 Mar 2020

Fitness to practise during Covid-19 - #FitnessToPractise Guide

During this extraordinary time, fitness to practise panels and tribunals have been cancelled or postponed. What does this mean for healthcare professionals?

More: https://buff.ly/2vFyEck #Covid19F2P

Reply on Twitter 1243120526698205192Retweet on Twitter 1243120526698205192Like on Twitter 1243120526698205192Twitter 1243120526698205192
Load More...

Recent Comments

  • Call for legislation to protect doctors from legal challenge - Fitness To Practise Guide on Fitness to practise during Covid-19
  • Fitness to practise during Covid-19 - Fitness To Practise Guide on How the NMC will continue to regulate during Covid-19
  • Fitness to practise during Covid-19 - Fitness To Practise Guide on Joint statement on fitness to practise and coronavirus

Get in touch

Get in touch with us for more information - start defending your licence and registration today.

Contact Us Now

Footer

Copyright FitnessToPractise.uk. All Rights Reserved.
48 West George St, Glasgow, G2 1BP
02070601983

Website by GlasgowWebDesign.co.uk