NMC responds to Parliamentary Health Select Committee annual report

The NMC Chief Executive and Registrar, Jackie Smith, said:

“We welcome the report and are pleased that the committee has recognised the progress we have made.

“We remain focused on delivering our key objectives, which has enabled us to make progress to date. We have set ourselves a challenging business plan for 2014¬–2015 and we are confident that we are on the right track. The plan will include progressing our work in areas such as:

• launching a consultation in January about revalidation
• reviewing the nursing and midwifery Code, and
• consulting on a duty of candour.

“The government’s commitment to modernise our legal framework will allow us to further reduce our target to complete the majority of our fitness to practise cases to 12 months. With the necessary changes, we believe we can deliver a better performance of this core function.

“We also welcome the acknowledgement of the need for legislative change to address the issue of language testing nurses and midwives coming from within the EU.

“We are committed to making sure the public are protected through the way we regulate nurses and midwives.”