The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) interim chief executive Dawn Brodick has resigned four days after her appointment was announced.
It comes after concerns were raised around her reported links to a high-profile discrimination case during her time as chief people officer at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
She held the role at a time when the trust was ordered to pay £1 million to IT manager Richard Hastings after an employment tribunal found that Mr Hastings had been unfairly dismissed and suffered racial discrimination.
The NMC had defended its decision to appoint Ms Brodrick, who was originally meant to replace Andrea Sutcliffe on an interim basis as of Monday 1 July.
The NMC has today said however that her start date had moved to the 2 July and that she had ‘stepped back just ahead of starting in the role’.
But The Independent exclusively revealed this morning that Ms Brodrick stepped down Monday evening – four days after her appointment was announced – and the NMC confirmed to Nursing in Practice this was true.
Sir David Warren, chair of the NMC Council, said: ‘Last week we announced the appointment of Dawn Brodrick CB as the Interim Chief Executive and Registrar. Dawn has subsequently decided that she will not be taking up the role.
‘We will update on our arrangements for an interim Chief Executive and Registrar, later this week.’
Last week, Roger Kline, a research fellow who helped create the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES), and former Labour health minister Ann Keen wrote a blog outlining their concerns over the appointment of Ms Brodrick to the NMC.
Today, Mr Kline told Nursing in Practice: ‘The NMC leadership now needs to consider its position.
‘The public, registrants, and NMC staff now need leadership capable of learning from mistakes and challenging bullying and racism wherever it occurs. This was a serious failure of governance.’
The nursing regulator has faced previous criticism for its ‘culture of fear’ and in May commissioned a review of its Fitness to Practice (FtP), following concerns around the differences in referral outcomes for minority ethnic nurses.
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