Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average length of time taken by the Nursing and Midwifery Council was to process applications for registration from candidates trained in (a) in England, (b) in the European Economic Area (EEA) and (c) outside the EEA in each year since 2009-10.

The information requested in relation to the number of applications for registration to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is not held centrally.

The NMC is the independent regulator of nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom and is responsible for nurse registration. Statistical information provided by the NMC on the average length of time taken to process applications is set out in the table below. This information is based on applications for initial registration and does not include renewals or readmission requests.

*Processing timings relate to the very final stage of the process, which was amended in August 2013 to include face to face ID verification and document scrutiny meetings for overseas applicants and additional checks for EEA applicants, in support of improved regulatory rigour and enhanced public protection.

** Information is collected on a UK rather than an England basis.

***In January 2013 the overseas application process was suspended for a period while the robustness of the process was subject to review. When the process was restarted additional scrutiny steps had been added, while a new overseas process was developed. The NMC are currently operating two processes for overseas registration. Those who applied pre October 2014, are subject to the Overseas Nursing Programme route to registration, which may involve a practice placement of up to one year. The final entry to these programmes will be October 2016. Those applying post October 2014 are subject to the new Test of Competence, which means overall processing times will reduce as all applicants move onto the new process.