A registered nurse, midwife or nursing associates should have a minimum number of practice hours over the three year period since your registration was last renewed or joined the register for revalidation.
For nurse, midwife, nursing associate the number of work hours required is 450 hours during three year period. If you have dual registration such as a nurse and midwife, you need to have 450 hours of work in each of the area of practice.
Practice hours that counts for NMC Revalidation
– You can only count work hours that you undertook while you were registered with the NMC. You cannot count unregistered work or hours completed when working in an entirely different regulated profession such as a paramedic or medical doctor.
– Work hours should reflect your current scope of practice. You must comply with The Code: professional standards of practice and behavior for nurses, midwives and nursing associates at all times. This includes the duty to recognize and work within the limits of your competence.
– Some activities cannot be counted towards the practice hours requirement. They are, hours undertaken in a healthcare, nursing or midwifery assistant or support worker role. Hours completed when working in a separate regulated profession cannot be counted as well. For example, when working as a paramedic or medical doctor/Nurses undertaking an 18-month midwifery programme. They cannot use their midwifery training hours in order to maintain their registration as a nurse. They will be able to use any practice hours undertaken as a nurse, either before or after their midwifery course, during the three-year period or Hours undertaken in any healthcare, nursing or midwifery assistant or support worker roles cannot be counted towards practice hours
– If you are working overseas (or have worked overseas for part of your three year renewal period) as a nurse, midwife or nursing associate you can count these hours towards this requirement for revalidation. Where possible, you should always register with the appropriate regulator in the country in which you are practicing.
– If you have had a career break, you will still be able to meet the practice hours requirement if you have completed the required hours of registered work during your three year renewal period.
Recording of Practice hours
You can either use the template provided by NMC (download here). Besides, you can make a template by including the following information
– Dates of practice – It is the period of time you are employed permanent/partime on a contract basis.
– Number of hours undertook – Sum total of all hours worked.
– Name, address and post code of the organisation – Organisation with which you have worked during the specified period
– Scope of practice – It can be specific to your role such as direct clinical care or management, adult and general nursing, childrens and neo natal nursing, mental health nursing, learning disablities nursing, midwifery, health visiting, occupational health, school health, publich health, other commissioning, education, policy, quality assurance, inspection, research or other.
– Work Setting – It can be ambulance service, care home sector, community sector, hospital sector, military, prison etc
– Description of work you undertook – Brief description or summary of your responsibilities in the specified jo
– Evidence of those practice hours, such as time sheets, job specification and role profiles
As an example an adult nurse employed full time (37.5 hours) would have completed 5100 hours in three year period.
Example of a completed practice hours document – Click Here
What happens if you lack the required hours?
There are two options for you if you lack the required work hours for NMC revalidation, they are
– You can successfully complete an appropriate NMC-approved return to practice program before the date of your revalidation application. These programs are designed to allow you to renew your registration and return to practice after a break in practice. Further information about return to practice programs is available on our website or
– You can cancel your registration. Candidate will continue to hold a nursing and/or midwifery qualification, but will not be registered with the NMC. Thereupon you can apply for readmission to the register in future if you wish to work at your desired role. Information on cancelling registration and seeking readmission to the register is available on nmc website.
NMC Approved template for recording your practice hours – Practice-hours-log-new-2022
Example of a recently done NMC revalidation document of practice hours – Download Here
Disclaimer – Eventhough we have tried our level best to provide you with most accurate information, there can be flaws in the content of this article. If find any or want to speak about your revalidation application or give us a suggesstion, please contact us at nmcrevalidation4u@gmail.com