NMC says Nurses must accept concerns about their practice

Legislative changes designed to speed up fitness-to-practice (FtP) cases will only work if Nurses accept concerns about their practice.

Controversial changes including a new measure that will allow the Nursing and Midwifery Council to issue ‘public warnings’ against registrants who have breached professional standards came into force this week, be able to offer informal advise to Nurses for less severe cases and agree restrictions on practice with registrants directly.

The reforms will enable case examiners to resolve issues earlier on in the FtP process and will mean the NMC will only have to take the most serious cases to a full hearing but the NMC boss says this can only happen in Nurses accept concerns about their practice earlier in the process.

This years financial report shows noted a significantly higher spending on fitness to practices cases and part of the new process is to minimise this spending.

Several concerns have been raised that the new system may result in over-use of warnings and the fact they may disadvantage staff when applying for employment.