Health Unions respond to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s reorganisation

Published: 27 June 2008

The following statement is issued jointly by the Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing and UNISON:

"The Council for Regulation of Health Professionals (CHRE) report is very thorough and highlights a number of serious failings in the operation and organisation of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). A key concern is the fact that that relationships within the council appear to have broken down to such an extent that it reported inappropriate behaviour by and amongst members.

"The NMC was criticised for its inability to maintain working relationships with stakeholder organisations. We are three of those organisations and we believe that in order to move forward a new team of leaders is now required. We do not believe that the current unacceptable situation can be resolved without this happening. Good internal relationships need to be restored and to do this we need a new leadership team to ensure public protection and to restore public confidence. We believe this is the only option.

"The CHRE report makes it clear that these problems are of long standing and have not been addressed with the speed that they should have been - this is not a criticism of any one individual but a reflection of the break down in relationships. We commend the actions of the President and Chief Executive in putting the interests of the organisation first and we would urge the vice president to do so also. Nothing - including any individual’s position - is more important than public protection and we would urge everyone to put this, and only this, first."

-ends-

Notes to editors

For more information contact the RCM Press Office on 020 7312 3433/3432

1. The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) aims to promote and advance the profession of the midwife. The RCM represents over 95% of the UK's midwives and is one of the world's oldest and one of the largest midwifery organisations, and celebrated its 125^{th anniversary in 2006. It is also a trade union. For more information visit the RCM website at www.rcm.org.uk <http://www.rcm.org.uk/>.}

^{2. Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is the voice of nursing across the UK and is the largest professional union of nursing staff in the world. The RCN promotes the interest of nurses and patients on a wide range of issues and helps shape healthcare policy by working closely with the UK Government and other national and international institutions, trade unions, professional bodies and voluntary organisations.}

^{For further information, interviews or illustrations please contact the RCN Media Office on 0207 647 3633, press.office@rcn.org.uk or visit <http://www.rcn.org.uk/news/mediacentre.php>;.}

^{3. Unison Press Office: 0788 7945307}

^{4. The NMC are solely funded by nurses, midwives and health visitors, paying an annual registration fee. This is currently set at £76.00 per annum.}

^{5. The council for regulation of health excellence is the over arching regulator they over see the public protection across the 9 regulators the largest being the nursing and midwifery council, health professionals council, general medical council, general dental council etc}

^{6. The nursing and midwifery council was established by the nursing and midwifery order 2001 they regulate nurses, midwives and health visitors currently there are over 680000 registrants on their register. Regulation is a complex matter, however the primary aim of the NMC is to ensure pubic protection they do this by establishing standards for nursing midwives and health visitors to enter and maintain their professional registration and finally by managing allegations of fitness to practice ultimately removing from the professional register those individuals who fail to fulfil the standards expected of a registrant.}

^{7. The CHRE is required to undertake annual performance reviews annually of each of the regulators.}