The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into the Nursing & Midwifery Council amid “serious concerns” about its governance.
The charity, which regulates nursing and midwifery practice in the UK, has been accused of leaving unchecked serious cases of abuse by nursing staff, according to The Independent newspaper.
The concerns arose from an internal document shared with the paper by a whistleblower, which included allegations that several nurses who had committed sexual, physical and racial abuse had been allowed to continue working on wards.
According to The Independent, the document claimed that the incidents had been ignored by the NMC and that staff were too scared to report the concerns, due to a “culture of fear” within the watchdog.
One whistleblower told the paper that a culture of “deep-seated toxic conduct” was leading to skewed and failed investigations by the NMC.
The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into the organisation after receiving a serious incident report from the NMC.
A spokesperson for the commission said: “We have received information detailing a number of serious concerns relating to the governance of the Nursing & Midwifery Council.
“We have opened a regulatory compliance case to further assess this information and to determine our next steps alongside other bodies.”
The NMC is also subject to regulation by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, which said it was engaging with the whistleblower and had been in discussion with the Charity Commission.
A spokesperson for the Professional Standards Authority said: “We are aware of a whistleblowing concern and the serious issues raised. The NMC is investigating these, and we are unable to comment on an open investigation.
“We will be monitoring this as part of our oversight of the NMC and will review how it handles the issues raised.”
Andrea Sutcliffe, chief executive and registrar at the NMC, said: “I’m very sorry that there are concerns about our culture today.
“We know we have much more to do to create the safe and inclusive environment that supports each of our colleagues to thrive and fulfil our purpose of protecting the public.
She said that NMC was appointing independent experts to conduct “rigorous reviews” of the concerns and advise on further steps to embed “sustainable change”.
She said: “We’ll be transparent about the findings, recommendations and our action plan.”
In an earlier statement last week, Sutcliffe said: “I’m so sorry that anyone has personally suffered or observed racism at the NMC. I want the NMC to be an anti-racist organisation and it’s clear we’ve got a long way to go to achieve that.
“I absolutely accept that experiences of some of my colleagues from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds have not been good enough and that when they’ve raised concerns, these have not always been acted on or acted on quickly enough.
“There’s so much more we must do to embed the safe, inclusive and supportive culture we all want to see.”