Does the NMC feel like nursing’s heavy-handed police force?

The Nursing and Midwifery Council has been told it cannot act like the ‘nurse police’ and it can’t protect the public against all risk in healthcare. We ask a panel of nurses what they think – some emphasise the importance of regulation for a registered profession and the NMC’s role in protecting patient safety, others discuss how NHS and other employers could assess more fitness to practise complaints themselves, removing the need for some to be referred to the regulator.