Interview: Paul Rees on leaving the NPA to ‘clamp down on racism’ at nursing regulator

After 14 months with the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), Paul Rees told The Pharmacist why he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to make a difference at the NMC, one of the biggest organisations in healthcare.

On 20 January 2025, Mr Rees will begin his new role as interim chief executive of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

He’ll be tasked with transforming a ‘dangerously toxic’ and ‘dysfunctional’ culture at one of the biggest healthcare regulators in the world.

‘This role is all about improving the NMC’s wider organisational culture, including embedding equality, diversity and inclusion: clamping down, if you like, on racism or discrimination within the NMC – to ensure that the NMC does a better job of protecting the public, running fair processes, and ensuring that the staff team are treated with respect,’ Mr Rees told The Pharmacist in an interview before Christmas.

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Last year, an independent review team issued a damning report which found that bullying, racism and burnout within the NMC was putting nurses and the public at risk.

Serious concerns were also raised about the regulators fitness to practice (FTP) proceedings, including ‘some really worrying examples of safeguarding failures’, according to the independent report.

Mr Rees told The Pharmacist that he accepted the role at the NMC because he had ‘always cared passionately about equality, diversity and inclusion, and also [about] culture being right.’

At the NPA, Mr Rees and the board have written a new strategy for the organisation that embeds ‘equality, diversity and inclusion as a priority’.

The association also celebrated International Women’s Day, Pride, Black History Month, and South Asian Heritage Month for the first time in 2024.

And Mr Rees spoke out to support the sector as violent, racist and Islamophobic unrest swept the country in August.

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‘I think I was the first leader in pharmacy to say where patients were abusive, racist or Islamophobic, pharmacy teams should refuse to serve them and turn them away,’ he told The Pharmacist.

While Mr Rees said he had ‘loved working with the NPA’, the role at the NMC appealed to him ‘because it meant that one of the things I was really passionate about, I would be able to help drive through’.

‘‘I’m also going to have a laser focus on the delivery of the NMC’s core regulatory work, and obviously [if] the NMC manages to embed equality, diversity, inclusion, it really will help ensure that all nurses and midwives and nursing associates, whatever their background, whatever the characteristics, will be confident that there will be an effective and fair process run by the NMC,’ he said.

‘It is a big job,’ he added.

With 1,300 staff and 830,000 registrants, the NMC ‘is one of the biggest health regulators in the world’, Mr Rees said.

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‘In healthcare, there aren't many jobs that are bigger,’ he added.

‘It's really exciting to be in a position, if you like, of privilege that you can try to ensure an inclusive, high performing culture, because that impacts on so many people.’