‘Dysfunctional’ culture at UK nursing regulator is safety threat, review warns
A “dysfunctional” culture at the UK nursing regulator is threatening public safety, according to a damning report that found the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) took seven years to strike off a nurse who had been accused of rape and sexual assault.
Staff at the regulator broke down in tears “as they recounted their frustrations over safeguarding decisions that put the public at risk”, according to the authors of an independent review of the regulator.
The review team highlighted a “toxic culture” at the NMC, with one former employee describing their section of the organisation as a “hotbed of bullying, racism and toxic behaviour”.
The report also shone a spotlight on suicides by nurses caught up in long drawn-out fitness to practise investigations, highlighting how some nurses had been under investigation for nearly 10 years.
The authors commented on the NMC’s backlog of 6,000 cases, which meant some nurses were forced to wait four or five years for their investigation to be completed, even though some cases were “baseless complaints where no further action is required”.
Source: The Guardian, 9 July 2024