New milestone reached - 1st anniversary of Nursing Associates joining the NMC register

Today marks a year since the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) opened up their register to qualified nursing associates, in that time over 1500 have joined.

Welcoming the Anniversary Mark Radford, Chief Nurse, Health Education England said:

Health Education England values the contribution of Nursing Associates (NA). The first waves of NA have been working as part of teams alongside Registered Nurses and AHPs in the delivery of care to patients  in health and social care settings across the country. It is great to see over 1500 NA’s now on the NMC register.

“There is a great deal of support and commitment to the programme and we want to ensure the role remains a popular opportunity for people wanting to further their health career.  Our focus will be on working closely with our partners to achieve this and make sure there is support for those carrying out the role and that continues to deliver benefits to health teams and patients alike. 

We will be undertaking further evaluation on the impact on the role as part of the healthcare team , to ensure the aims of the ‘Shape of Caring review’, patients and healthcare system are met by this new professional role.

HEE is working on a range of initiatives to boost NA numbers and raise awareness of the role including:

• The introduction of Ambassadors who will fly the flag for the profession. They will work with a range of stakeholders from the health and care system to promote and advocate the role; the ambassadors will support new applicants, the current workforce and highlight opportunities of the NA role;

• The development of a NA Fellowship programme will support the development and leadership journey of the Nursing Associate and help prepare nursing associates for a consolidated role or their journey to enter the Registered Nursing pathway;

• The launch of a dedicated site that provides detailed information on the NA role for individuals and organisations across health and social care. The site offers advice and case studies plus links to active recruitment opportunities across health and social care;

• Working with Skills for Health to support  the recruitment of 300 Nursing Associates into social care by March 2021 and develop the role across a range of social care settings and;

• A six week social media campaign which began at the start of the month which aims to reach people that are interested in a career in health care and  demonstrate the skills required for the caring profession and that would not usually access traditional NHS or social care recruitment sites.

The Nursing Associate role was introduced to help build the capacity of the nursing workforce and the delivery of high-quality care. It is a vital part of the wider health and care team and aims to support career programme, enable nurses to focus on more complex work and increase the supply of nurses providing a progression route into graduate-level nursing.