High court orders rehearing after NMC misconduct case found flawed

In The Professional Standards Authority v The Nursing and Midwifery Council & Anor [2026] EWHC 637 (Admin) (18 March 2026), a High Court judge has ordered the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to rerun a misconduct case after finding that the original hearing was undermined by serious procedural failings and legal errors. The ruling, handed down on 18 March 2026 in The Professional Standards Authority v The Nursing and Midwifery Council & Anor [2026] EWHC 637 (Admin), quashes the NMC panel’s 2025 decision concerning military nurse Kwabena Ntow.

The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) brought the appeal under its statutory powers to challenge regulatory decisions that may not sufficiently protect the public. The underlying allegations centred on claims by a colleague, referred to as Person A, who alleged non‑consensual sexual intercourse and sexual activity during 2021–2022. The NMC panel had dismissed several of the most serious allegations at the halfway stage, concluding there was “no case to answer”, and ultimately found only one instance of misconduct—consensual sexual intercourse in a hospital disabled toilet—before deciding that Ntow’s fitness to practise was not impaired.

Mr Justice Butcher found that the NMC’s handling of the case was flawed in two major respects. First, the regulator failed to secure the attendance of two key witnesses: Person B, who had received an early complaint from the complainant, and a forensic expert whose evidence related to saliva samples from July 2022. Their absence led the panel to exclude their evidence entirely. The judge held that this amounted to a serious procedural irregularity, noting that the missing testimony could have materially affected the panel’s assessment of the allegations.

Second, the court ruled that the panel had applied the wrong legal approach when deciding that several allegations should be dismissed at the half‑time stage. The panel failed to consider the evidence “at its highest”, as required by criminal and regulatory case law, and wrongly treated inconsistencies in the complainant’s account as determinative of unreliability. It also failed to apply the statutory test for assessing a registrant’s reasonable belief in consent, and reached inconsistent conclusions on related charges. These errors, the judge said, meant that the panel had prematurely halted consideration of serious allegations.

Although the NMC conceded a further ground relating to its assessment of impairment, the judge noted that this point alone would not have justified overturning the decision. However, because the ruling requires a full rehearing, the issue of impairment will necessarily be revisited.

The case will now return to a newly constituted NMC panel, which must reconsider all allegations, including those previously dismissed.

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