Record number of NMC fitness to practise referrals

Anthony Omo, seconded from the GMC said the scale and breadth of change needed at the NMC around fitness to practise would “inevitably take time”.

The Nursing Times reported that  the NMC stated that its overall fitness to practise caseload was 6,581 on 31 October 2024.

This is a 19% increase compared to the same time last year, when it was 5,519. The average number of referrals from April to October was 544 per month – 21% above the originally assumed level of 450. Concerningly, the NMC received 611 FtP referrals in September – the highest number in one month in the last five years.

Mr Omo, GMC director of fitness to practise, said:

“If you think about the volume of complaints coming through screening, it needs to be as slick and as quick as possible to determine whether or not there is something for the NMC to look at, in which case it needs to be investigated and moved through the system, or it needs to be shut down or shared elsewhere,” he explained.

“You are one of a number of players in the healthcare space responsible for protecting the public.

“You are not the [only] player responsible, and you’re certainly not the police person… for nursing.

“So attempting to try and be the policeman doesn’t work for you, and a lot of the cases, I think, are stuck because you’re trying to do that.

“You absorb, in my view, far too much and then struggle to deal with that and get it out system. Hence, things hang around for quite a long time.” 

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