The Nursing and Midwifery Council

1. the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is the independent regulator for nurses and midwives in the UK. Two of its most important tasks, which are set out in statute: the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001 (The Order) are to:
(i). maintain a register of nurses and ensure it can be searched by the public, and
(ii). to ensure nurses and midwives meet required standards.
2. In 2022, I searched the Register for a person working, in a management position, for the NHS Trust detaining me. I found one person under that name but they were recorded as being in a different part of the country.
(i). I telephoned the NMC, informed them of the results returned by the search and asked if it was an erroneous entry.
(ii). The NMC refused to say; it claimed to do so would breach that person's privacy.
(iii). I asked if the Trust's employee was a registered Nurse. Again, the NMC refused to say, still claiming it would be a breach of his privacy.
(iv). I told them I wished to file a complaint with them against the Trust's employee, were he a nurse. Still, they refused to say.
3. I informed Ms Andrea Sutcliffe, the Chief Executive of the NMC, of the situation. She refused to say whether the person recorded in the register was the same person against whom I wished to file a complaint.
4. By refusing to say whether the Trust's employee was a nurse, the NMC and its Chief Executive:
(i). refused to have the Register searched, as required by law, and
(ii). deliberately impeded attempts to file a complaint against a nurse.
5. A year later, the details in the Register had not been updated. I later discovered it was the same person. And so, in addition to the breaches of The Order, described at No.4, above, the NMC and its Chief Executive failed correctly to maintain the Register: they knew or ought to have known it contained an error and they did not correct it.
6. The NMC has also refused, on several occasions, to act against nurses who plainly were in breach of ethics and basic standards.
7. The NMC is supposed to discuss its decisions with complainants, should the complainant wish to do so. It refused to discuss its reasons for refusing to uphold complaints I made against nurses. It gave no reason for refusing to discuss those decisions.