Free tool
NMC revalidation planner
Enter the date your registration is due for renewal and this lays out the whole cycle: what is required, when each piece should be done, and how long you have left. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Your renewal date
Days remaining
0
Practice hours
450
In the three years before renewal
CPD hours
35
At least 20 of them participatory
Your cycle, in order
| Do this | By when | Why then |
|---|
Dates are calculated from the renewal date you entered and are guidance for pacing the work, not NMC deadlines in themselves. The only hard deadline is the renewal date, on which your application and fee must be submitted.
What revalidation actually requires
Every three years, before your registration renewal date, you must have completed all of the following. None of it is difficult. Leaving it late is what makes it hard.
| Requirement | The detail |
|---|---|
| 450 practice hours | Or 900 if you are renewing as both a nurse and a midwife. Hours must be in a capacity relying on your registration, and they include far more than bedside clinical work: management, education, research and advisory roles all count. |
| 35 CPD hours | At least 20 participatory, meaning learning that involved other professionals. Keep evidence of each. The CPD hours calculator works out where you stand. |
| Five pieces of feedback | Practice related feedback from patients, colleagues, students or managers. It can be verbal, written, formal or informal. Note it down when it happens; nobody remembers useful feedback two years later. |
| Five reflective accounts | Written on the NMC's own form, about CPD, feedback or an event in your practice, each linked to the Code. This is the requirement people dread and the one that improves practice most. |
| A reflective discussion | A conversation about those accounts with another NMC registrant, who signs the form. It cannot be with yourself and it cannot be skipped. |
| Health and character declaration | Including any convictions or cautions, and any determination by another regulator. |
| Professional indemnity | A declaration that you have an arrangement in place. Employed staff are normally covered by their employer; check rather than assume, particularly for bank and agency work. |
| Confirmation | From a confirmer, normally your line manager, who has seen your evidence and discussed it with you. |
The three mistakes that cause late applications
Reconstructing from memory. Feedback and reflective accounts written three years after the event are thin, generic and take four times as long to produce. Write them as things happen, in ten minutes, while the detail is still there.
Leaving the reflective discussion to the end. It depends on someone else's diary. Book it around two months out, not two weeks, because a confirmer on annual leave in your final fortnight becomes your problem rather than theirs.
Assuming participatory hours will sort themselves out. Twenty of your 35 hours must involve other professionals, and if you notice this in month 34 you have a scramble ahead. Taking one thing you learned alone to a team meeting each quarter solves it permanently.
Questions
When should I start preparing?
From the start of the cycle, treating it as continuous rather than as an event. Concretely: log CPD and feedback as they happen, write each reflective account within a week of what prompted it, book the reflective discussion around two months before renewal, and submit in the month before your date.
Who can be my confirmer?
The NMC recommends your line manager. If you have no line manager it can be another NMC registrant, or another regulated healthcare professional, and only where none of those is available, someone else who can verify your evidence. They must have discussed your evidence with you before signing.
What if I have not got 450 practice hours?
Tell the NMC rather than the deadline. If you cannot meet the practice hours you may be able to take a period of registration lapse and return through a return to practice programme, and there are provisions for illness and parental leave. What you must not do is submit a declaration that is not accurate.
Does the planner store my dates?
No. Everything is calculated in your browser and forgotten when you close the tab. If you want your CPD hours and certificates kept permanently, a free account here does that.