An independent report into the UK nursing regulator has laid bare a toxic culture of bullying, racism and groupthink that is putting the public at risk. It found that widespread dysfunction within the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates more than 800,000 staff in care settings including hospitals and GP surgeries, had contributed to criminal behaviour being excused. It is a damning indictment of failure at every level.
The review was led by Nazir Afzal, the former chief prosecutor for North West England. “Good nurses,” he warned, “are finding themselves being investigated for years over minor issues and bad nurses are escaping sanction.”
In one case, a nurse accused of drugging and raping a colleague and sexually assaulting patients was not struck off until seven years after a complaint was received. In the last year, there have been multiple “serious event reviews” — these relate to the potential failure of the NMC to appropriately handle allegations of physical and sexual abuse against children outside a clinical setting. In plain English, nurses may have been left free to work unchecked so long as any offences were committed away from work.
• ‘Toxic’ nursing regulator left patients in danger, report finds
Also highlighted is a huge backlog of 6,000 disciplinary cases, with some taking years to conclude. The resulting delays have been linked to a series of suicides by nurses left in the dark during lengthy “fitness-to-practise” investigations. One parent directly blamed the regulator for their daughter’s death.
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The problems are not new: claims of bullying and racism at the NMC were investigated by the Department of Health as far back as 2008. It has responded to the latest findings with talk of a “turning point” and a “culture change programme”. How often have we heard these promises to do better in the future? Where is the actual accountability in terms of heads rolling?
Just as complacent is the response of the NMC chairman, Sir David Warren, who described the report as “profoundly distressing”. He expressed condolences to families of those who had killed themselves and said their cases were being revisited. This is scant consolation. What exactly have Warren and his colleagues been doing during this time?
In May, the NMC chief executive Andrea Sutcliffe announced that she was resigning due to ill health. Her successor Dawn Brodrick stepped down last week before starting her job. This is clearly not a happy ship. The NMC is in urgent need of a leadership that can learn from its mistakes, turn around its rotten workplace culture and remedy the wider institutional failings identified in this report. Failure to act jeopardises patient safety.
