Registered nursing associate – What’s next?

Nursing associates (NAs) have been registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) since 2019 (Nursing Times, 2019) and since then have become a part of the nursing family across all four fields of nursing. There are currently over 10000 nursing associates registered with the NMC (2024a) and Health Education England set a target of training a total of 45 000 NAs by 2027 (NHSE, 2021). The NHS Long Term Plan (2024) sets out ambitions to significantly increase the number of NAs in the UK and this includes expanding NA training places to 10 500 by 2032.

The career progression and CPD options for nursing associates have not yet been researched and no frameworks to support these have been produced (Urwin, 2024). To increase retention and meet the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan this will need to be addressed. As a result, this article is largely anecdotal but research into