Nursing & Midwifery Regulator Seeks Practitioner Views On Revalidation, UK

Main Category: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 05 Nov 2008 - 9:00 PDT

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The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) has today launched a survey asking nurses and midwives about their current appraisal processes and how they'd like to see them developed for the future. The survey, launched at the NHS Employers Conference in Birmingham and available on the NMC website is an initial scoping exercise forming part of a major undertaking to develop a system of revalidation whereby nurses and midwives provide evidence of their continuing fitness to practise.

Take part in our survey on revalidation

The White Paper Trust, Assurance and Safety - The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st century (White Paper) endorsed the findings of the Foster Review The Regulation of the Non-Medical Healthcare Professions that revalidation is necessary for all health professionals as it will enhance public protection by ensuring that health professionals in clinical practice are up to date and fit to practise.

The NMC is part of the non-medical working group which was established to take forward the recommendations of the White Paper and includes all nine UK healthcare regulators as well as other key stakeholder groups¹. It set out the principles for revalidation to help the regulatory bodies for non-medical healthcare professionals develop proposals for revalidation including the systems and processes and to provide advice on the piloting required.

NMC project lead and professional adviser, David Hutton said:

"Nurses and midwives make up the largest part of the regulated health professionals working within the NHS so it's important that we engage with them at an early stage at the NHS Employer's conference and throughout the project. We want to hear from nurses and midwives at all levels, not only from the NHS but from the independent sector care sector and the third sector. This survey will help to give us an idea of what's currently happening in this area and what they would like to see happening in the future."

The survey will be open until December 15, 2008.

Notes

1. The non-medical revalidation group consists of the Department of Health; General Chiropractic Council; General Dental Council; General Medical Council; General Optical Council; General Osteopathic Council; General Osteopathic Council; Health Professions Council; Nursing and Midwifery Council; Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain; Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland; NHS Employers; KSF Expert; Council of Deans for Nursing and AHPS; SHA Workforce Lead; Independent Healthcare Advisory Services; Chief Nursing Officer Scotland; Allied Health Professionals Federation; Royal College of Midwives; Ministry of Defence; and other individuals representing service commissioners or education programme providers.

2. The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) is the UK regulator for two professions, nursing and midwifery. To be eligible to work as a nurse or midwife in the UK, they must be registered with the NMC. There are currently more than 674,000 nurses and midwives on the register. The primary purpose of the NMC is to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public. It does this through maintaining a register of all nurses and midwives to practise within the UK and by setting standards for their education, training and conduct.

Nursing & Midwifery Council