Nursing council investigates quality concerns at Anglia Ruskin

Healthcare courses at Anglia Ruskin University are facing a further probe from a regulator amid quality concerns.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has confirmed it is conducting an “extraordinary review” over courses at the East Anglian university, three years after a previous investigation.

Times Higher Education understands that the university reported itself to the NMC over concerns regarding its mental health courses, which were launched and approved by the NMC in 2024.

Investigations have taken place across ARU’s Cambridge and Chelmsford campus throughout June.

The NMC, the regulatory body for nursing and midwifery in England, outlines in its quality framework that extraordinary reviews are conducted to ensure institutions “continue to meet our standards, if concerns or intelligence suggest that an [approved education institution] or a programme in partnership with their practice learning partners is no longer meeting our standards and requirements”.  

The separate 2023 investigation was initiated after the NMC said it had received an “increase” in complaints against ARU, and raised concerns that these complaints were not being addressed. ARU was unable to demonstrate “compliance with all legal, regulatory, professional and educational requirements”, it found.

The inquiry also raised concerns that teaching was not provided “by appropriately qualified and experienced professionals”, and that the NMC lacked assurance that “educators and assessors always act as professional role models”. 

An action plan was developed by ARU, which was then approved by the NMC and “the decision was made at the QA Board to escalate ARU’s nursing and nursing associate programmes to the level of a critical concern for education”, a report into the inquiry says.

It was ruled that ARU would meet with the NMC on a six-weekly basis “to discuss the action plan and seek evidence of their progress against each of the NMC Standards”.

The NMC said the most recent investigation does “not directly relate to the 2023 concerns”, but one student at ARU, Laura Maisey, said she had concerns that lessons had not been learned. 

Maisey said she had not known about the previous investigation upon applying for mental health nursing at ARU but had discovered it after raising concerns over the quality and standard of teaching on the mental health course, prompting her to complain to the university and NMC.

While she could see some steps had been taken since the previous report, there had not been “a vast improvement” on issues previously raised.

Maisey added that she feared the quality concerns will have wider implications for healthcare in the local area.

“This is a matter of public urgency,” she said, as graduates then become “the nurses who take care of us when we go to hospital”. 

Any concerns over quality are “a risk to public health”, she said.

“I want good healthcare for people in this area. I want to be able to know that I can actually protect people because I’m a good nurse,” she said.

ARU said it was unable to comment while the investigation was ongoing.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com