Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many nurses were brought before a fitness to practise panel for lack of competence, communication issues between 2013 and 2015; and how many such nurses (a) were and (b) were not suspended.

The information requested is not held by the Department. As an independent body the Nursing and Midwifery Council is responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of its statutory duties including fitness-to-practise investigations in respect of its registrants.