Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps were taken to check the professional credentials of foreign trained nurses who started work in the UK in the period before the Nursing and Midwifery Council's monitoring system was reviewed in October 2014.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is the independent regulator of nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom and is responsible for nurse registration. We expect the NMC’s registration processes and associated checks to protect patient safety through being appropriate, robust, fit for purpose and effective, and by verifying that a nursing applicant is who they claim to be, is appropriately qualified, is competent and fit-to-practise.

On 1 October 2014, the NMC introduced a new overseas registration process, for applicants from countries outside of the European Economic Area with competency testing at its core. Prior to this an overseas nursing programme, including protected learning time and a period of supervised practice, was the route to NMC registration for overseas nurses. Since August 2013, overseas nursing applicants are required to attend a face-to-face interview and produce original versions of all the documents, including their qualifications, used in support of their application.