Nurses' lives are being 'ruined' by 'drawn-out' investigations with 18 deaths since 2018 as they await fate, campaigners claim

Earlier this year, and in a significant first, a coroner in Somerset called for a closer look at the NMC’s role in the suicide of nurse, Amelia Morten-Scott, 34, who took her own life in 2023.

And now LBC has seen a suicide note, written by an NMC whistleblower, in which he specifically highlights the role of the regulator in his decision to take his own life - which he describes as the "final and most massive straw".

Over the course of our investigation, LBC found the NMC has failed to meet half of the basic standards expected of it, with major concerns also being raised about vetting of nurses with serious criminal convictions, and questions over the body's ability to reverse a culture of bullying and racism. 

Cathryn Watters from NMC Watch, an organisation that supports more than 900 registrants, told LBC: “It's absolutely tragic.

"The reason we know those figures is because they're published on the annual NMC fitness to practise report. Now that only started in 2019. The thing that worries me is are those figures accurate?

"Are they the true numbers?

"These are nurses and midwives who have died whilst their investigation is ongoing. We need to look at that. We need to think about that really carefully. 

“I hear from many, many registrants that suicidal ideation is very prevalent even for those that have had their case long finished, and the mental health aspect is just tragic.

“None of us want rogue practitioners to be out there practicing, we're not about that, but I think we need to just maybe take a step back and think, what are we trying to do here?”

Speaking to LBC, the Chief Executive of the NMC, Paul Rees said: "Any death of a nursing professional whilst they're in the Fitness to Practice process is a tragedy.

"The only person who can decide whether the Fitness to Practice process was a material issue in that is the coroner, and no coroner's finding has said that the NMC Fitness to Practice process was a key factor"

_______________________________________________________________________________

In 2024, Rise Associates and the former Chief Prosecutor for the North West, Nazir Afzal OBE, were commissioned to undertake an independent cultural review of NMC.

The report was scathing. It was commissioned after a series of disclosures by a whistleblower in 2023, who claimed a “deep-seated toxic culture” was leading to skewed and failed investigations.

The report shone a light on the regulator’s inability to process cases quickly, with a backlog of 6,000 FtP cases.

In many of these cases, nurses who were eventually cleared spent years in limbo. “Good nurses are finding themselves being investigated for years over minor issues and bad nurses are escaping sanction because of a system that’s not functioning as well as it should,” Afzal's report concluded.

In a statement the NMC said: “There is still a long way to go with Fitness to Practise, but the timeliness rate is now at around 74% of cases being resolved within 15 months end-to-end, which is the best performance since 2020."

Ishbel Straker, a Psychiatric Nurse Prescriber with decades of experience, has been suspended for nearly six years. Her referral to the NMC followed whistleblowing on a healthcare provider in November 2020, which prompted the healthcare provider to make a “retaliatory complaint” to the NMC one month later.

"Nobody has ever given me an adequate explanation of what risk I pose to the public today," Ishbel told LBC.

"The High Court has now confirmed that NMC Panels have been getting the most basic legal test wrong, asking nurses to disprove allegations rather than requiring the NMC to prove them.

"That is exactly my experience. The process does not feel like regulation in the public interest. It feels like punishment for speaking out. I nearly lost everything."

Ms Straker is now the founder of Justice for Nurses, a public campaign that has collected the testimonies of nurses across the UK, which is pursuing parliamentary and legal reform of the fitness to practise system. She's also established and the Regulatory Justice Foundation CIC, which aims to prevent suicide and psychological harm for professionals going through these processes.

"The difference between me and some of the nurses whose stories I now carry is that I had just enough left to fight back."

Among those to testify is Michelle Russell, a Senior Nurse who has been fighting the NMC for 11 years. Her journey began after reporting a sexual assault by a male colleague at the trust. 

She told LBC: “All my allegations were upheld, there was an independent investigation, there's a number of other victims, but my perpetrator had a Fitness to Practise hearing with the NMC and received a caution which doesn't restrict his practice.

"He’s employed, and I've had my contract terminated with the NHS, so I'm now unemployed.

“Losing my career, a career that I absolutely loved, obviously that has a massive financial impact, an emotional impact, but that's not the important thing. The thing that I kind of held dearest as a nurse was that we are there for our patients. We're there to do a specific job, and a big part of that is about safety and care. And that is the thing that keeps me awake more than anything, is that I know that that man is a risk, he's a threat and he is working with the public. 

“I can't kind of get that out of my head, that it's totally unjust and wrong, but it's made me lose all trust across the board, but particularly in health and health... I don't access care when I need it from my GP because I am now so mistrustful. There is this awful cover up culture that I didn't actually really know about.

“It's taken a huge emotional toll. It continues to, because now I don't actually have an income. Thoughts of suicide are very difficult for me to talk about, because I wouldn't want to upset the people that I love and care about. But yeah, I mean, I would say it's a major risk.”

The culture report by Nazir Afzal and Rise Associates in 2024 pointed to a “deep seated toxic culture”.

Bullying, racism and incompetence were common themes, along with dysfunction “at virtually every level” across the NMC (find the relevant quote),

For Jan Tari, a former IT worker at the regulator, it was the driver for him to take his own life, according to a suicide note shared with LBC by Jan’s best friend.

Jan, 58, a database developer at the NMC between December 2022 and August 2023 began raising concerns about what he believed were dangerous data management practices within weeks of starting his role, but having expressed his concerns he ended up losing his job and spiralling into depression.

The suicide note shared with LBC addresses the NMC directly: “To the NMC: When you read this I should, if all has gone to plan, be dead. 

“You are not the only reason, but be assured, you were the final and most massive straw.

“If losing my life is worth getting an NMC that is competent and what the nurses deserve (in other words, not this NMC) it's a fine price to pay. 

“My accusations of data malpractice may be wrong but they are made in good faith and deserve an investigation you have not done nor are clearly able to do. 

“If I was wrong you could have shown it with far greater ease (and much lower cost) then your simple blanket denials and stonewalling. 

“Your upper tiers are wilfully incompetent; you preserve that incompetence for the sake of keeping your jobs and to the cost of those you regulate. 

“You are incompetent to the point of corruption. Jan”

Speaking to LBC about Jan's death, his devastated best friend, Lucas Braybrook, said Jan was initially "very excited" to work for the NMC, but was "ostracised" after making his complaint about how information was being processed. “He had a tribunal, that was made to be very difficult for him. [He] had to represent himself, and unfortunately he felt the only way to be heard was to take his own life, and he did that in the most public way.

“He felt so strongly about this NMC thing that he died for it.”

The Coroner’s report into Jan’s death noted that the 58-year-old had experienced trauma in his early life, and was potentially suffering from depression, but that the employment tribunal dispute with the NMC had, on the balance of probability, exacerbated his depression.

_____________________________________________________________________________

In May 2026, the Professional Standards Authority published its own findings into the NMC which show the regulator is going backwards in terms of key areas of their work.The PSA found it met only nine out of the 18 standards required, identifying concerns around transparency, equality and diversity, registration processes, education quality assurance and fitness to practice procedures.

In relation to the handling of FtP and dealing with the backlog of cases, the PSA said it retained "significant concerns", and that cases are still "taking far too long to process’.

Paul Rees MBE was appointed to the role of Chief Executive in November 2024 following the departure of Helen Sutcliffe. His mission was to turn the NMC around and end the toxic culture.

He told LBC: "We've rolled out a culture transformation plan. We've got the biggest coaching programme for our leaders of any healthcare professional regulator.

"Our Fitness to Practice process is at the most timely it's been since late 2020, although we need to do much better. We've produced anti-racism principles for midwifery and nursing education and practice.

"We're doing a practise learning review. We're doing a consultation on that now to make sure that midwifery and nursing training is fit for the future."

Jonathan Meadows, a solicitor specialising in fitness to practise cases before the NMC and other healthcare regulators, told LBC:  “I think the biggest issue for regulators is the volume of cases that are coming in and referrals that come in, and that seems to go up every year."

"They are being asked to do more with less, and this creates backlogs. So, from that first position when someone gets a complaint, what they do know very early on is that it may not be resolved for a number of years, and that creates a huge, huge psychological burden on them going through these proceedings.

"It's very difficult to navigate these things when you're under that pressure. Figures from the NMC show 67% of FtP cases are closed without ever going to a hearing, so is there an argument for them never being dealt with at source, rather than being referred to the regulator?"

Mr Meadows said: “If anyone gets through the lifetime of their practise without a complaint, they've done exceedingly well. Often by the time they get to a final hearing, the damage is already done.

"So that individual, for example, might have been subject to an interim order for a number of years. By this point, they've lost their home, they've lost their career, it's had an impact on their professional reputation.

"So ,trying to get back into work after that time is tricky. 

“They've missed their revalidation points and so on. They may have to do a return to practise course, which which costs a fair amount of money, that's a really tricky issue. 

“The biggest issue within these proceedings is delay, and I think for that reason it probably isn't fit for purpose in its current form.”

______________________________________________________________________________________

In 2023, Amelia Morten-Scott took her own life while under investigation by the NMC.

Her death will be investigated at a full inquest in Somerset later this year, but at a pre-inquest hearing in March, the coroner called for a closer inspection of the “actions and omissions” in the NMC's investigation and whether they played a part in the 34-year-old’s suicide.

Mr Rees told LBC: “Any death of a nursing or midwife  professional whilst they're in the Fitness to Practice process is a tragedy.

"The only person who can decide whether the Fitness to Practice process was a material issue in that is the coroner, and no coroner's finding has said that the NMC Fitness to Practice process was a key factor."

Other concerns around the NMC’s vetting procedures have been raised after a report by The Guardian found nurses and midwives, who should have been banned from treating patients, have been allowed to practise over the last 12 years despite disclosing their criminal convictions from the outset.

Ultimately, it would appear innocent and capable nurses are being dragged through a Fitness to Practise process that leaves their reputations and mental wellbeing in tatters, while simultaneously allowing potentially dangerous and unsuitable nurses to practice because the NMC's vetting is not up to scratch.

The NMC has consistently said it will “learn lessons” but has anything changed? In a written statement to LBC, Paul Rees MBE, Chief Executive and Registrar, said: "The NMC has had a chequered history, with a number of critical reports going back to 2008.

"We know that the NMC has made a number of mistakes over past years, and for that we are truly sorry.

“We now have a new leadership team – I was appointed as the substantive Chief Executive and Registrar in July last year, having previously been the interim; we have a new Chair Ron Barclay-Smith; and a virtually new executive team.

“We’re determined to turn around this organisation once-and-for-all, through a three-year transformation programme – which we’re one year into.

“We're turning over all the stones and dealing with issues as they emerge.

“There is still a long way to go with Fitness to Practise, but the timeliness rate is now at around 74% of cases being resolved within 15 months end-to-end, which is the best performance since 2020.

“In the summer of 2023, just 60.8% of cases were being resolved within 15 months end-to-end.

“We will shortly be launching health checks of all of our regulatory functions and will then, for the first time in the NMC’s history, roll out a central quality assurance process.

“We’ve launched a Culture Transformation Plan, which prioritises transforming our culture, embedding equity, diversity and inclusion, and ensuring we take an anti-racist approach.

“We’ve launched concrete measures to tackle discrimination in our Fitness to Practise process – and at the end of May, we launched new anti-racism principles for midwifery and nursing education and practice, which will promote bias awareness, and cultural curiosity, safety and respect. 

“We’re also getting tough on poor behaviours among staff. Over the last two years, we’ve exited 17 people for bullying or harassing others, or for being racist.

“We know that the NMC hasn’t met the high standards people have rightly expected of it over many years, so we’re now building a new NMC once-and-for-all, that aims to be the strong and independent regulator that everyone wants to see.”

The impact of suicide reaches far and wide. Call Samaritans for free on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org for more information.