NMC was told to detoxify – six months on, how is it doing?

The Nursing and Midwifery Council commissioned an independent review of its organisational culture in response to a whistleblower’s claims that a toxic workplace was harming the regulator’s handling of nurse fitness to practise (FtP) cases. Leading lawyer Nazir Afzal’s subsequent 2024 report made 36 recommendations. Six months on, we examine what progress, if any, the UK’s nursing regulator has made in transforming its dysfunctional culture, widening the racial diversity of its managers and cutting the backlog of FtP cases that has been a cause of distress and distrust among nurses.