NMC Fitness to Practise Outcomes: What the Statistics Tell Us About Nursing and Midwifery Hearings
The NMC is the largest healthcare regulator in the UK, covering more than 800,000 nurses, midwives, and nursing associates. When a registrant's fitness to practise comes into question, the outcome of that process can end a career.
Our database contains 452 NMC fitness to practise hearings with structured outcome data. Here is what the numbers show.
NMC outcome distribution
| Outcome | Count | Percentage | |---|---|---| | Striking off | 53 | 11.7% | | Suspension | 38 | 8.4% | | Conditions of practice | 19 | 4.2% | | Caution | 3 | 0.7% | | No action | 1 | 0.2% |
The remaining hearings resulted in interim orders, adjournments, voluntary removal, or other procedural outcomes not captured in the five core sanction categories.
Striking off: the headline figure
11.7% of these 452 hearings ended in striking off. For comparison, the HCPC's struck-off rate across 2,894 hearings varies by profession but sits around 12-13% depending on the case mix. The NMC figure is broadly in line with that.
But the comparison needs some qualification. The NMC regulates a single broad profession (nursing and midwifery, with nursing associates), while the HCPC covers 15 distinct professions. Across those 15, the HCPC data ranges from 8.5% for radiographers to 19.5% for biomedical scientists. The NMC's 11.7% falls comfortably in the middle of that range, which is perhaps not surprising given the size and diversity of the nursing workforce.
Suspension and conditions
Suspension orders (8.4%) and conditions of practice orders (4.2%) together account for 12.6% of hearings. Both allow the registrant to return to the register after a defined period, provided any conditions are met.
The gap between suspension (8.4%) and conditions (4.2%) is worth noting. NMC panels appear more willing to impose a clean suspension than to design bespoke conditions. This probably reflects the practical difficulty of monitoring conditions across a register of 800,000. A panel specifying that a registrant must work under direct supervision needs to be confident that supervision can actually be enforced. Often, it cannot.
Caution orders are rare
Three hearings in our dataset ended in a caution, representing 0.7% of the total. Caution orders are the lightest sanction available: they annotate the register for between one and five years without restricting practice. Their near-absence at this stage of proceedings makes sense. By the time a case reaches a full hearing, it has already been through screening and case examiner review. Cases that belong at the caution end of the spectrum are generally resolved before they get here.
How engagement affects outcomes
Across all regulators in our database, the single strongest predictor of outcome severity is whether the registrant actually engages with the fitness to practise process.
Our cross-regulator data shows:
- Not engaged: 29.8% struck off or erased
- Engaged: 15.5% struck off or erased
That is close to a 2:1 ratio. And it holds consistently across the HCPC, NMC, GDC, and GOC. For NMC registrants, the practical implication is straightforward: attend your hearing, get legal representation, and respond to correspondence. Non-engagement does not make a case go away. It makes the worst outcome roughly twice as likely.
What NMC panels value in mitigation
Our NMC-specific data on mitigating factors is thinner than the HCPC dataset, but the cross-regulator patterns are consistent enough to be useful. The mitigating factors that come up most often across all regulators are:
- No previous fitness to practise findings — panels treat a clean record as significant, particularly for a first lapse
- Self-referral — registrants who report their own concerns are viewed more favourably than those where the regulator found out another way
- Genuine remorse — not a formulaic apology, but demonstrated understanding of the impact on patients and colleagues
- Good character references — from colleagues, managers, and where possible, patients
- Isolated incident — a single lapse is treated differently from a pattern of conduct
The aggravating factors that push outcomes toward striking off mirror the HCPC data: abuse of position, failure to remediate, lack of insight, and non-engagement. Panels are particularly sensitive to the last two. A registrant who cannot explain what went wrong, or who has done nothing to address it, is a registrant the panel cannot reassure themselves about.
The NMC process: context for interpreting this data
NMC fitness to practise proceedings follow a structured path: referral, screening, investigation, case examiners, and for the most serious matters, a full hearing before a fitness to practise committee.
The 452 hearings in our dataset all reached that final stage. They are not representative of all NMC referrals, most of which are resolved earlier. This data captures the serious end of the spectrum, and the outcome distribution should be read accordingly. An 11.7% striking-off rate sounds significant in isolation. But it comes from a population of cases that have already cleared multiple filters.
Comparing NMC and HCPC
| Metric | NMC (452 hearings) | HCPC (2,894 hearings) | |---|---|---| | Striking off rate | 11.7% | 8.5% - 19.5% (by profession) | | Suspension rate | 8.4% | Varies by profession | | Engagement effect | ~2x increase in striking off when not engaged | 29.8% vs 15.5% | | Dataset size | 452 hearings | 2,894 hearings |
The HCPC dataset is larger and allows more granular analysis by profession. The NMC data gives a focused view of nursing and midwifery. Both point to the same broad conclusion: regulators operate on consistent principles. Engagement matters. Remorse matters. Insight matters. Registrants who can demonstrate all three are substantially less likely to face the most severe outcomes.
Search NMC hearing outcomes
These statistics come from TribDB's database of 4,044 fitness to practise hearings across four UK healthcare regulators. The NMC data covers 452 hearings with structured outcomes, updated as new hearings are published.
Whether you are a nurse or midwife under investigation, a legal representative preparing for an NMC hearing, or a union officer supporting a member through the process, the data is available to search by keyword, outcome, and allegation type.
Search NMC and other regulator hearings at tribdb.uk/regulators
Data sourced from publicly available NMC fitness to practise hearing records. All figures based on 452 NMC hearings in the TribDB database as of April 2026.