The government has announced that it is taking steps to further protect the title ‘nurse’ as the currently protected title ‘registered nurse’ is ‘not enough to sufficiently safeguard the public’ -it states that ‘some people still use the title ‘nurse’ despite not being qualified’.

The announcement states:

• ‘The effect of that reform would be to make it a criminal offence for an individual who is not a nurse registered with NMC to call themselves a nurse, including where the word ‘nurse’ appears as part of a longer job title’.
• ‘By extending protection in that way, the government aims to reduce the risk of the public being misled into believing that an individual is registered or has a post-registration qualification for which NMC has set standards, when that is not the case’.
• ‘…the term ‘nurse’ is currently used in the titles of several other professions, for example, ‘dental nurse’. It is not the government’s intention to criminalise legitimate uses of the word ‘nurse’ in such contexts. For that reason, any future legislative protection for the title ‘nurse’ is likely to require carefully defined exemptions to allow other professionals to continue to use the title without the risk of prosecution’.

Views are therefore being sought on which roles should be allowed to use the word ‘nurse’ and be exempt from prosecution and whether any other titles relating to the nursing profession should be protected.

The link can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/using-the-professional-title-nurse/using-the-professional-title-nurse-call-for-evidence-document