Who Needs to Revalidate With the NMC?

Every nurse, midwife and nursing associate on the UK NMC register revalidates. The eight requirements don’t change based on what you earn, who pays you, where you work or what your contract looks like. The NMC’s rule is binary: if you’re on the register, you revalidate.

That said, the route through revalidation differs by situation. Agency nurses need a confirmer they don’t see daily. Midwives need to demonstrate practice in midwifery. Dual registrants double their hours requirement. Returning nurses might revalidate or might Return to Practice depending on how long they’ve been off the register. This chapter walks through the edge cases.

Standard case: employed nurse, single registration

Most registrants are here. You’re a single-registration nurse (Adult, Mental Health, Children’s, or Learning Disability nursing) working in a salaried role with a line manager. Your revalidation requirements are the standard eight:

• 450 practice hours
• 35 hours of CPD (20 participatory)
• 5 pieces of practice-related feedback
• 5 written reflective accounts
• 1 reflective discussion
• Health and character declaration
• Professional indemnity arrangement
• Confirmation, usually from your line manager

If this is you, the rest of this guide applies as written. Skip ahead to Part 2.

Nursing associates

Nursing associates joined the NMC register in 2019. The revalidation framework that applies to nurses and midwives applies to them too: same three-year cycle, same eight requirements, same forms, same online submission process.

The one practical difference is that nursing associates may be earlier in their professional development than colleagues on the nurse register, and the reflective discussion partner has to be an NMC registrant. That can mean a nurse on the same ward or a senior nursing associate. Either is fine; the NMC doesn’t require like-for-like registration.

Midwives

Midwives revalidate on the standard cycle, with the same eight requirements. The evidence has to demonstrate ongoing midwifery practice, so feedback from antenatal clinics, postnatal care, intrapartum care, or community midwifery is what counts.

The reflective discussion can be with any NMC registrant: a midwife colleague, a supervisor of midwives (where the role still exists), or a senior nurse if no midwife is available. The NMC removed mandatory midwife-with-midwife reflective discussion in 2017.

Dual and triple registrants

A nurse who later qualifies as a midwife, or a registrant who holds three registrations (nurse, midwife, and nursing associate for example) faces increased practice hours but the same paperwork.

• Single registration: 450 practice hours.
• Dual registration: 900 practice hours.
• Triple registration: 1,350 practice hours.

The hours have to be split appropriately across the registrations. You can’t do all 900 hours as a nurse and zero as a midwife if you hold both. A dual registrant who doesn’t practice midwifery in a cycle has to either drop the midwife registration before renewal or accept that they’ll lapse from one of the two.

Agency, bank, locum, self-employed

There is no employment-type exemption. An agency nurse who works through three agencies and never has a fixed line manager still has to revalidate. The eight requirements are identical.

The practical challenge is confirmation. Agency, bank and locum nurses don’t have a single line manager who’s seen all their evidence. The NMC accepts confirmation from a senior NMC registrant who has worked with you for at least 12 months, or from a regulated healthcare professional in a similar position. Chapter 95 walks through how to find one when you don’t have a manager.

Career breaks, parental leave, sick leave

The cycle keeps running through any kind of leave. There’s no pause button.

A short career break (a few months) doesn’t usually break revalidation if you can still demonstrate 450 practice hours across the three years. A long break (12+ months out of practice) often will, because you can’t make up 450 hours in the remaining time.

If your hours fall below 450 you can’t revalidate. The route back is Return to Practice: a course of supervised re-introduction to nursing, ranging from a few weeks to several months depending on how long you’ve been off the register.

For parental leave specifically: it doesn’t count as practice hours and isn’t exempt from the requirement. If your maternity leave puts you below 450 hours over the three years, you’ll need to either make them up before your deadline or let the registration lapse and rejoin via Return to Practice.

Overseas, retired, considering leaving the register

A registrant who chooses to stop being a UK nurse can let the registration lapse. There’s no penalty other than not being able to work as a UK nurse. To return later you re-join, and depending on how long has passed, the route may include Return to Practice or, after a long lapse, the Test of Competence (CBT and OSCE, covered in Part 6 of this guide).

If you work overseas and want to keep the UK registration, you revalidate as normal. Your overseas practice hours count, provided you can evidence them. You’ll need an indemnity arrangement that covers UK practice if you’re planning to return.

Retired registrants who’ve stopped practising can choose to stay registered out of professional identity, but they still face the 450-hour requirement. Most retired registrants accept the lapse rather than chase hours they’re not using.

The next chapter covers the cost of revalidation in detail: the £120 annual fee, the indirect costs, and where the money goes.