We have been raising the issue of mental health impact of fitness to practice investigations since we launched NMCWatch in 2017
Despite many publications across nursing and main stream press little seems to change.
Recently the NMC gave an update on their progress with safeguarding and wellbeing
They stated with pride of the thousands of cases they had reviewed on receipt of referral "more than 7,000 Fitness to Practise (FtP) referrals through a safeguarding lens over the past 18 months."
they went on to say
"The Hub, established in September 2024, ensures that every referral (new concern raised with the regulator about a registrant) is assessed by a professional with safeguarding expertise. This means that potential safeguarding or serious wellbeing risks are identified immediately, and the right support can be put in place where needed to protect people from harm."
Whilst this is an improvement it still misses the fundamental issue that:
- registrants will be reluctant to disclose health issues when initially referred for fear of it making their case worse
- MH deterioration will occur at different rates and different stages depending on how the case progress and other issues occurring such as housing, employment and finances
- Unions prevent registrants speaking direct to the NMC and so disclose can not occur
- After the initial assessment no ongoing triage or risk assessment occurs and it requires the registrant or their advocate to highlight risk after this point.
We were recently approached by someone wanting to join our group. She told us:
"I had personal experience with bullying at work false accusations a 12 month internal investigation with falsified evidence that could have put me subject to NMC FTP, this whole process made me suicidal ...one attempt on my life with absolutely no support from work the only exception a colleague I knew for 20 years who knew I was innocent.
....my whole identity has been forced to change, I was accused of being drunk and intoxicated at work but have a metabolic disease that causes daily severe hypos ...this was senior nursing staff that couldn’t tell the difference. I’ve recently lost a friend/colleague to suicide through the sheer fact of being referred for fitness to practice."
It is simply not good enough to say "improvements are being made" when daily we hear such stories
Please help us change this