Professor Alison Leary has tabled a Petition to Parliament regarding the risks to the public from nurses who have been struck off the NMC register but are still practising as nurses in the private sector.

She correctly identified deficiencies in the legislation – that was supposed to protect the title “nurse” and prevent anyone from using it without statutory registration. A position conceded by the Nursing & Midwifery Council – the regulator – itself.

Both Professor Leary and the NMC hope the Government will now change the law to prevent this clear and present danger from harming patients.

Readers of this blog will be more than familiar with this issue. This is exactly the concern I raised with the sister regulator of the NMC – the Health & Care Professions Council – in 2008, which resulted in two criminal prosecutions against me a few years later.

Both government and regulators denied there was a problem – and spent £450K of public money in legal fees in an attempt to cover it up with a private criminal prosecution over three years.

I sincerely hope Professor Leary doesn’t experience any professional recriminations as a result of her action – she won’t be prosecuted unless she takes the same action as I had to do – and even then, there are no grounds as the regulator has conceded. The legislation doesn’t protect to the title after all. It never did.

If only the HCPC had been equally candid and honest, we wouldn’t have had sex-offenders and paedophiles practising on children either.

Please sign Alison’s petition here and ask your friends and colleagues to do the same, if so minded.