The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has decided to increase its annual registration fee after a decade of uncertainty. A 12-week consultation has been launched on the proposal. The registration fee, which is around £1.92 per month, has been frozen for 10 years without any increase. However, this has resulted in a 28 per cent drop in the NMC’s income.
Although the fee has not been increased the NMC’s responsibilities have increased significantly. Similarly, the complexity of the NMC’s work has also increased during this period. The NMC now monitors more nursing and midwifery professionals than ever before. In 2015, 6,86,782 people were registered, while now there are 8,53,707. This includes those in the position of Nursing Assistant, which was introduced in England in 2018.
The NMC, one of the 50 regulators regulating working-age professionals in the UK, has one of the largest registers of medical professionals in the world. The NMC also oversees 99 accredited training institutions across the UK, which provide training to over 115,000 nursing and midwifery students on over 2,757 programmes. This is compounded by the increasing number of cases relating to the code of conduct for nurses and midwives. The NMC is now facing a growing need to find more funding for its day-to-day operations .
The NMC is expected to spend £1.1m more on its operations than it received in 2023-24. It is expected to have a deficit of £27m this year. The NMC has proposed cutting some posts as part of its cost-cutting measures. This will reduce staff numbers by 10 per cent. It also plans to reduce non-wage costs by £3.1m a year.
In addition to the core fee, other fees are also being considered, including the fee charged to register overseas-trained nurses. They say fees cannot be avoided as 97 per cent of the NMC’s operating costs come from fees. Anyone from nurses, midwives, nursing students and the public can take part in the consultation and give their views.
