Briefing Document
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Briefing for MPs on nursing and midwifery registration
We are aware that some MPs have been approached by nurse, midwife or health visitor constituents over the last four months about the processing of their registration. Without effective registration, they are unable to practise in the United Kingdom. This briefing from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) sets out the factors that led to problems with the registration processes in recent months, and the solutions to those problems that the NMC has put in place.
The organisation
The NMC is the regulatory body for nurses, midwives and health visitors. Its primary purpose is to protect the public, which it does through setting standards for the education, practice and conduct of those on its register. Its chief tool in protecting the public is maintaining a register. With 644,025 people on that register in effective practice, it is the largest such register in the world.
What was the problem?
The previous regulator the UKCC had developed and tested a new computerised registration system to come into effect on 1 April. In order to migrate all the millions of items of data from the old to the new system, the old system had to be closed down for 10 days at the end of March. Given the numbers of transactions the Council handles each week*, this created an instant backlog of thousands of people trying either to get onto the register or renew their registration.
When the NMC came into office on 1 April, the first thing it faced was tackling the backlog that had arisen from the system shutdown. The general backlog of applicants from within the UK has now been dealt with, as has the backlog of nurses, midwives and health visitors renewing their registration. However, we are aware of a number of individual cases that have still to be resolved; most of these go back many months and result from inefficiencies in the system. We still have to tackle the backlog of decisions on applications from overseas-trained practitioners. This is a substantial backlog and one that is proving difficult to eradicate given the numbers applying each day.
*The scale of NMC business
Each week, the NMC handles:
· 10,000 changes of address
· 2,000 requests for application packs from overseas-trained practitioners
· 750 applications from overseas-trained nurses and midwives
· some 6,000 renewals of registration.
The NMC accepts total responsibility for solving these problems but it had no part in the creation of the problems. At the same time, we have great sympathy for those practitioners caught up in the problem; it was not their fault either and they have every right to be critical of the Council.
Short-term solutions
To improve access for registration business and speed up the process, the NMC has:
· employed 36 extra staff on the call centre (up from 7) - and is prepared to take on more in order to make the NMC accessible to all those seeking registration advice and information;
· employed two extra data experts to make overseas decisions and is prepared to take on more to eliminate the overseas backlog; and
· extended the registration of those on the register in March, April and May so that no practitioners registration lapsed through the fault of the regulator.
Medium-term solutions
To ensure that the problems inherited by the NMC dont happen again, the Council has put into effect the following change programme:
· appointing a new senior manager as head of registration;
· undertaking a complete review of all registration processes to simplify and speed up systems - and cut out as much paper as possible while retaining effective public protection;
· introducing online solutions to enable employers, practitioners and applicants for registration to effect most of their business with the NMC via the internet the first of these is already in place and is proving popular with employers; and
· discussing with universities ways of ensuring smooth transfer of information from colleges and universities to the regulator and, thus, quicker registration for newly qualified nurses and midwives
Presidents pledge
NMC President Jonathan Asbridge has pledged that the Council will have a slicker, more efficient registration process in place, and far easier access to the organisation, by 31 December 2002. That is just nine months from the start of the Council.
Contacts
For further information, please contact:
Sarah Thewlis, Chief Executive, 020 7333 6528 or at sarah.thewlis@nmc-uk.org, or Stuart Skyte, Head of Communications, 020 7333 6558 or at
August 2002