Its annual performance review covering 1 January - 31 December 2025 followed concerns identified in the July 2024 Independent Culture Review by Nazir Afzal and Rise Associates, and the outcome of last year's periodic review where the NMC met 11 of its 18 Standards.
The PSA said: ‘While recognising the steps being taken to deliver improvement, progress has been mixed and there are some areas where the NMC has taken very limited action to address issues identified in our last review.'
For the latest period, the NMC met nine out of the 18 Standards, falling short on: clarity of purpose; EDI; reporting on itself and addressing concerns; education quality assurance; maintaining an accurate register and a fair and effective registration process; and fitness to practise.
An update on the NMC's performance has been sent to the secretary of state for health and social care and the chairs of the Health and Social Care Committees in the four UK Parliaments.
The PSA will publish its next review in March 2027.
Paul Rees, chief executive and registrar, said ‘legacy issues' uncovered by the NMC's new management had held back progress against the PSA's Standards of Good Regulation.
He said the NMC's transformation agenda had already discovered historical issues around workforce registration that were revealed yesterday.
Rees added: ‘Transformation takes time, and we still have two years of our three-year turnaround plan to go. We'll now accelerate our efforts further, including carrying out "health checks" across all the NMC's regulatory areas – followed up by the roll out of a central quality management system – to make sure they're operating as expected.
‘We'll also deliver further transformative improvements in all strategic priority areas identified in the report, from EDI to education quality assurance – as we continue building a new NMC that aims to be the strong and independent regulator needed to protect the public, maintain confidence in the nursing and midwifery professions and uphold the standards of the professions.'
