NMBI is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Laura Sahm to the NMBI Board. Dr Laura Sahm received a B.Sc. Pharm(Hons) from University of Brighton and won a scholarship from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) to pursue her postgraduate studies in the Grade 5A* Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Bath. Dr Sahm obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics (Site-specific drug delivery of methotrexate to melanoma)in 1995. She moved to Germany in 1996 where she worked in community pharmacy, and for the pharmaceutical industry (Takeda GmbH). In 2003 upon return from Germany Laura worked as a senior clinical pharmacist in the Bon Secours Hospital, Cork before joining the School of Pharmacy (SOP) staff in UCC in October of 2005. Her position up until 2015 was as a joint appointment between the SOP and the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) where she worked as a consultant research pharmacist on research projects between UCC and the MUH. Since 2015, Laura is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy and Director of the MPharm Undergraduate Programme. 

The key responsibility for the NMBI as the statutory regulator of nurses and midwives in Ireland is to maintain an accurate register of nurses and midwives.

The inactive file was established in May 1993 as an administrative mechanism to facilitate nurses and midwives who were not in active practice, for reasons including retirement, working abroad or undertaking a career break. There are currently almost 30,000 persons on the inactive file. However, there is no legislative basis for the inactive file to continue.

The NMBI Board approved a proposal to disband the inactive file following a public consultation process in March 2017. This has taken on a new urgency given the introduction of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018. Both specify that personal data can only be collected for specified and explicit purposes, and must have a legal basis.

If you are a nurse or midwife on the inactive file you are now being invited to choose from one of the following two options:

1. You can choose to remain on the Register. If you wish your name to remain on the Register in 2019, you will be required to pay the Annual Retention Fee of €100. A fee notice will be sent to you following the 1st November 2018. You do not need to do anything further now if this is the option you wish to choose;

2. You can request to have your name voluntarily removed from the Register. If this is your favoured option you can do this by completing the Voluntary Removal Form. There is no fee for voluntary removal. If you wish to apply to restore your registration at a later date following voluntary removal, you will be able to do that by filling out the Restoration Form (following voluntary removal) and complying with any conditions for registration at that point including payment of the Annual Retention Fee.

If you do not choose 1 or 2 above:
3. Your name will be removed from the Register for non-payment of the Annual Retention Fee, as part of the annual removal process in March 2019. Should you wish to restore your name following removal for non-payment of the fee you will be required to fill out the Restoration Form and pay a €250 restoration fee. If you do not apply for restoration prior to the 1 July 2019, you will also need to comply with any conditions for registration imposed at that point.

If you have any queries please call our helpline on 1890 200 116.

Letters were issued to all nurses and midwives on the inactive file in recent weeks. If you are the relative of a nurse or midwife who is deceased, we apologise for any distress the receipt of this letter has caused you. If this is the case, it would be appreciated if you would send an email to registration@nmbi.ie and include the full name and PIN or date of birth of the nurse or midwife so that we may make the necessary change to the Register.

The President, Ms Essene Cassidy and the Board of the NMBI would like to thank you for your contribution to nursing and/or midwifery and the health services and your understanding of the need to ensure an accurate Register.

NMBI is seeking expressions of interest from public interest representatives to participate in the work of the Preliminary Proceedings Committee (PPC).

Public interest candidates must not be, and never have been, registered as a nurse or registered as a midwife in the State or in any other jurisdiction.

The PPC is a statutory committee of the Board of NMBI, established under the Nurses and Midwives Act 2011. The PPC gives initial consideration to complaints.

The appointment to a committee of the Board will be for an initial period of three years. Re-appointment may be made at the end of the first period for a further period of up to two years.

The closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday, 19 October 2018. 

For more information and to apply please see the NMBI website. 

NMBI is pleased to publish the Revised Children’s nurse post-registration: standards and requirements 2018. These standards and requirements outline the educational standards and requirements set by NMBI for post-registration children’s nursing education programmes set at Level 8 Higher Diploma (National Framework of Qualifications). These are designed to provide guidance to education providers and health care institutions involved in the post-registration education of children’s nurses in relation to the development, delivery and evaluation of such programmes.

Part 11 of the Nurses and Midwives Act 2011 introduced the issue of the maintenance of professional competence for registered nurses and midwives.

As you may know, NMBI is now beginning to consider how registrants maintain professional competence. In order to scope out the scheme we would like to establish the following:
1) The type of activities registered nurses and midwives engage with to maintain professional competence; and
2) How much time is spent to maintain professional competence?

We would like registered nurse and midwives to complete this very short and general survey which should take no longer than 5 minutes.

The results will be used to inform the development of the scheme and findings will be published on the NMBI website.

If you require further information or if you require a hard copy to complete manually please contact professionalcompetence@nmbi.ie.

The closing date is Wednesday 14 November at 5pm.