At the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), we’re ambitious about the future and want to play a leading role in driving up standards and enabling better, safer care.
I’m proud of the positive changes we’re making to the profession, with important new education standards for nursing and midwifery and a new approach to Fitness to Practise.
But we’re an organisation that doesn’t sit still. There’s always work to be done. And there’s definitely more to do.
So as we look to the next five years, we need to remember just how vital nursing and midwifery professionals are, and consider the wide variety of health and care settings they work in, across all four countries of the UK.
I saw this first-hand during my visit to a hospice in Cambridge last month. It was a thought-provoking, emotional day and served as a useful reminder of the breadth and scope of the roles our registrants take on, supporting people and their families through some of the most challenging moments of their lives.
Where are we now?
We are coming to the end of our new five year strategy and are looking to the future.
Between April and June this year, we started gathering views from nurses, nursing associates, midwives, patients and people who use services, our partners and the wider public. I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who took part. Their contribution resulted in us receiving more than 2500 responses – an incredible result.
We used these valuable insights to identify a number of potential priority areas sitting within five strategic themes that are out now for consultation.
Have your say and help shape the future
There’s a lot more to do to get this right, so it’s important we hear views from as many as people as possible on our draft vision and proposals.
Until October, you can help us agree a shared future for the NMC from 2020 and beyond. Please be part of the conversation. It is only by working in co-production with the public, professionals on our register and our partners that we will be able to continue building trust so we can be an authentic, leading voice of professional regulation making a difference for people using services. So please, join the conversation, and become part of the change.
Andrea Sutcliffe CBE, Chief Executive and Registrar at the NMC
To respond, go to https://www.nmc.org.uk/about-us/shaping-the-future/