NMC fee rise: why should nurses pay to fix their regulator?
The Nursing and Midwifery Council wants to increase its £120 registration renewal fee for the first time in a decade. The nursing regulator’s chief executive said that the imperative to close the gap between its income and expenditure is simple economics. It will use any increase in revenue on transforming the organisation, following a damning official review. The author states this places nursing registrants in the position of funding remedies to problems that are not of their making. She says feedback from nurses via social media suggests many are furious at the prospect of an increase in their annual registration fee.
The NMC wants to increase its £120 registration renewal fee for the first time in a decade – an ill-timed move that would be, to put it politely, bad optics
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is proposing to increase its registration fee for reasons its chief executive has summarised as simple economics.
The reaction of its nursing registrants can be summed up in one word: furious.
Nurses know all about the gap between income and outgoings
As a general principle, you can’t dispute the economic theory of a mismatch between income and outgoings. Nurses know this better than most people when they look at their own bank statements and see how their pay has not kept pace with inflation, whether in food prices, or transport and other essential costs.
What is questionable – or as registrants say, outrageous – is the timing of the announcement of a public consultation on a fee rise, proposed to rise by almost 20% to £143, given the recent publication of damning official reviews of the regulator itself.
The NMC argues it hasn’t put up its registration fee in ten years and is eating into its reserve funds, with – like last year – a projected £24 million deficit this year.
NMC chief executive Paul Rees told our reporter: ‘It’s based on simple economics. If you keep contracting your resource base in real terms and keep increasing your cost base to deliver a service, you end up in a situation where you have to address the basic finances.’
Pushing up registration fee is ill-timed, given what’s happened to NMC’s reputation
Registrants are aghast at any hike in fees after a review found their regulator was ‘dysfunctional’ with a ‘toxic’ culture and recommended change.
Kinder descriptions of the fees consultation on social media include ‘laughable’ and ‘disgraceful’, with many questioning what the NMC does with their fee. Find out more in our explainer.
The NMC is also cutting 10% of its workforce and says any rise will go into its transformation by a new leadership team; this means registrants – who each spend £120 annually on renewing their registration – find themselves in the position of being compelled to pay for solutions to organisational problems not of their making.
Economics aside, the decision to announce this consultation right now – it closes on 6 January 2026 – is at best ‘bad optics’ and to nursing staff, well … a lot worse.
