Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)

Who the NMC regulates

Every nurse, midwife, and nursing associate practising in the UK must be registered with the NMC. It is a criminal offence to call yourself a registered nurse or registered midwife in the UK without being on the NMC register.

• Nurses (adult, mental health, children's, learning disability)
• Midwives
• Nursing associates

The NMC register and the NMC PIN

The NMC register is public, free, and updated daily. You can search it by name or by NMC PIN. The PIN is an 8-character identifier in the format two digits, one letter, four digits, one letter — for example, 01A2345N. Registered nurses and midwives must give you their PIN on request.

Each register entry shows the registrant's name, PIN, town, and the part or parts of the register they are on. The entry also flags any conditions of practice, suspensions, or erasures arising from fitness-to-practise proceedings, with effective dates.

NMC fitness-to-practise hearings

When a concern is raised about a registrant's fitness to practise, the NMC investigates and may refer the case to a hearing. Hearings are conducted by an independent panel that decides whether the registrant's fitness to practise is impaired and, if so, what sanction to impose.

Sanctions a panel can impose include erasure (being struck off the register), suspension, conditions of practice, a caution order, or no further action. Interim orders — temporary restrictions imposed before a substantive hearing — can also be made by an interim orders panel.

Where to find older NMC decisions

The NMC publishes recent fitness-to-practise outcomes on its main website but only retains the most recent few months on its hearings index. Older outcomes are no longer linked from the NMC's own listings. MedicWatch retains the persistent record under the journalism exemption so the public can still find decisions that have aged out of the NMC's index.