NMC: limitations and opportunities

Since I started working at the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) I have taken opportunities to share what I call ‘things I wished I had known about the NMC when I was a senior nurse in the NHS’. This has helped me to understand the role of the NMC, and the limitations and the opportunities that we have to progress in several key areas.

The history is an interesting place to start:

The history of professional regulation in the UK was associated with the status and power of the established professions, such as medicine and law. Professions got to set their own standards and police the parameters of their professions and oversee action in response to concerns about members of their profession. This period ended decisively with a public inquiry into the GP Harold Shipman, who murdered at least 284 of his patients over 30 years. The chairman of the Shipman Inquiry, Dame Janet Smith, criticised the General Medical Council (GMC), saying that there is a perception that ‘the GMC acts, not in the interests of patients, but in the interests of doctors’ (Smith, 2005).