Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter has announced that the Government has offered the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) a one off grant of £20 million to improve the NMC’s performance.
The Government said it expected the grant would protect nurses and midwives from the full impact the original proposed registration fee rise of almost 60%. Annual registration has historically cost every nurse and midwife £76 per year, but the NMC recently consulted on increasing its annual fee to £120. This would have meant that nurses and midwives would pay an extra £44 every year. The Government wanted the grant to help the NMC to properly tackle a backlog of fitness to practice cases, as well as to allow it to reduce the effect of a fee rise for nurses and midwives. Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter said: “Following a period when we have heard of so many terrible abuses in the care of older people and vulnerable patients, it is important that organisations like the NMC are in the right shape to properly perform their job of protecting patients.” The NMC later accepted the government’s offer to support the costs of regulation and decided to raise registration fees to £100 a year.
