NMC Code Section 25: Provide Leadership

Section 25 closes the Code with the leadership obligation.

“Provide leadership to make sure people’s wellbeing is protected and to improve their experience of the healthcare system.”

Sub-clauses:

• 25.1 Identify priorities, manage time, staff and resources effectively and deal with risk to make sure that the quality of care or service you deliver is maintained and improved.
• 25.2 Support any staff you may be responsible for to follow the Code at all times. They must have the knowledge, skills and competence for safe practice; and understand how to raise any concerns linked to any circumstances where the Code has, or could be, broken.

Section 25 closes the Code by widening the lens from individual practice to the system the practice sits within.

What it means in practice

Leadership in nursing happens at every level:

Personal leadership. Modelling the Code. Behaviour that influences peers and juniors. The quiet examples that set tone on a ward.

Operational leadership. Leading a shift, allocating workload safely, prioritising under pressure, supporting team members in difficulty.

Project leadership. Leading a QI initiative, a guideline review, a service improvement, an audit cycle.

Strategic leadership. Senior nurse contribution to trust strategy, regional collaboration, professional body engagement.

Section 25 applies the same principle at every level. Your scope of leadership scales with your role, but the obligation to lead within that scope is constant.

Common breaches

• Failure to lead a shift safely: workload allocation that caused harm, escalation not done.
• Failure to support team members: particularly junior or struggling colleagues.
• Non-engagement with service improvement despite being in a position to contribute.

Section 25 breaches in fitness-to-practise are usually paired with breaches of other sections. The leadership failure is the systemic frame around an individual harm.

CPD that maps to Section 25

• Leadership development: NHS Leadership Academy programmes at every level.
• Quality improvement: NHS England and trust-specific training.
• Management skills: for those moving into team leader and ward manager roles.
• Coaching and mentoring.
• Change management.
• Resilience training for leaders.

Common reflective account themes

Strong Section 25 accounts describe:

• A specific moment when you led a team through a difficult situation.
• A QI project you contributed to or led.
• A moment of personal leadership: modelling the Code when it mattered.
• A learning experience from a leadership development programme.

Where Section 25 connects to other sections

• Section 8 (cooperative working): leadership of teams.
• Section 9 (share skills): developing others is leadership.
• Section 11 (delegation): delegation is a leadership act.

This is the end of Part 3 of the guide, covering all 25 sections of the NMC Code. The next chapter starts Part 4 on writing reflective accounts in detail, beginning with the NMC Form 6 field by field.