The number of nurses and midwives being suspended from work has more than doubled within a year.
Analysis by The Epoch Times shows that between March 2022 and March 2023, over 660 nursing staff in the UK were handed suspension orders over fitness to practice concerns—a jump from 311 the previous year.
Some of the cases include inappropriate relationships with patients, theft, dishonesty, and sexual offences.
Last month a Filipino nurse was struck off after it was proved she attacked an elderly patient she was caring for in a Liverpool care home.
Gaudencia Dator was caught on CCTV at Wavertree Nursing Home slapping the wheelchair-bound patient on the side of the head.
She was also filmed letting go of the patient’s wheelchair, which slammed into a door frame.
The incident happened in February 2020 and according to NMC documents was reported to Merseyside Police who sought to question Dator on suspicion of assault.
However, she fled back to her home country before facing any disciplinary hearings and police were forced to close the case.
At a fitness to practice hearing on April 12, a formal striking-off order was issued against the registered nurse.
A striking-off order—the most serious sanction— removes a nurse, midwife, or nursing associate’s name from the register and prevents them from working again in the profession.
Prison Nurse Convicted
Of the 663 suspension orders handed down between March 2022 and March 2023, many were for serious misconduct. Some also amounted to criminal charges.In January this year, prison mental health nurse Rachael Donegan was handed a suspension order from the NMC register after she was found to have been in contact with a prisoner via an illegal mobile phone.
According to NMC documents on Donegan’s case, staff at HMP Liverpool recovered the phone from the prisoner’s cell in 2016 before handing it over to police.
As a result of police enquiries, Donegan was identified as having contacted the illegally concealed mobile phone.
She was arrested and questioned a number of times before admitting to contacting the inmate from two separate phones a total of 7,678 times over the period of one month.
Donegan was charged and later convicted at Liverpool and Knowsley Magistrates Court of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, contrary to section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007.
She was sentenced to complete 40 hours unpaid community service, given a 12-month community order, and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £85.
Stole From Dying Patient
In March 2022 registered nurse Leanne Wallace was struck off the nursing register after she stole the bankcard of a dying patient and spent over £1,700.The incident happened in July 2020 at University Hospital of North Tees, Stockton when lockdown and COVID-19 restrictions were still in place.
An NMC panel heard how the patient’s sons discovered the money had been taken from their father’s bank account as he lay dying in a hospice just days after being moved from the hospital where Wallace worked.
She had ordered a bed, wallpaper, and paid £900 off a personal loan using the patient’s money.
When questioned about the theft, Wallace tried to claim the man—who a judge would later say was in no state to communicate—had offered her the cash.
It was later found that Wallace had tried to use a number of the dying patient’s cards to steal more cash, but failed.
She was later convicted at Teeside Crown Court in November 2021 and sentenced to 14 months behind bars.
The NMC said it had no option but to remove Wallace from the register.
“The panel determined that Ms Wallace abused her position of trust to steal from a dying patient in her care, further exacerbated by her dishonesty after he had died to prevent her dishonesty being discovered,” a fitness to practice report stated.
“The panel considered that a member of the public would be appalled by Ms Wallace’s behaviour and that public confidence in the profession would be seriously undermined if a finding of impairment was not found on this ground.
“The panel therefore determined that a finding of impairment on public interest grounds was required.”
Dishonesty
In another shocking dishonesty case a nurse failed to tell her previous nursing employer that she continued to be paid for almost two years after leaving her job.Adult nurse Laura Hillan received over £31,000 from the Northern Health and Social Care Trust (NHSCT) after leaving her role of student midwife in May 2017.
Although she had completed the paperwork to notify the trust she was leaving, an administrative error by her manager meant she continued to be paid monthly until February 2019, when the mistake was finally noticed by the Northern Ireland health trust.
An NMC fitness to practice hearing was told in March how Hillan, who registered in 2013, said she had always intended to repay the money and did not realise her actions were fraudulent.
But the hearing found she had acted dishonestly for a prolonged period and had gained financially—£31,772 in total—from a breach of trust.
A fitness to practice report stated her former employer had issued a letter to Hillan in March 2019 informing her of the overpayment and asking her to contact the trust.
The case was referred to the counter-fraud department, which investigated before contacting police.
The following month Hillan’s sister contacted the trust on her behalf to say she was out of the country but wanted to set up a repayment plan.
On her return to the UK six months later, Hillan contacted NHSCT by email and telephone to set up a repayment plan. She repaid the money in full in April 2020.
The NMC ruled the nurse had behaved dishonestly by concealing from her former employer the fact she was receiving payment to which she was not entitled, and only acted when the police became involved.
Hillan said in a statement to the NMC panel: “I never thought I was being dishonest. I always knew the money had to be repaid and it was always my intention to do so.”
Sexual Touching Conviction
Not all nursing staff who have faced serious criminal charges have been removed from the register.In February 2022 the NMC placed a suspension order on a Manchester nurse who had been convicted of sexual touching.
Aaron Peter Fussell, a clinical adviser in the employee health and wellbeing department at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, had been convicted of sexually touching a woman over the age of 16 in December 2020.
NMC documents state that in December 2019 Fussell was sitting at a table in a bar with a friend, when a female member of staff approached them about the bill.
Fussell is said to have pretended he could not hear her and she leaned in to speak.
“Mr Fussell then pulled her t-shirt away from her chest and raised his head as though looking down her top,” the fitness to practice hearing was told.
The victim made a report to police and Fussell denied the charge. He later pleaded guilty in court.
He was sentenced to a six-month community order and ordered to pay £200 compensation.
The registered nurse was also fitted with a tag and ordered to abide to strict a curfew between the hours of 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.
At his fitness to practice hearing, a number of remorseful letters written by Fussell were read out to the panel.
They were accompanied by character references from colleagues with one describing him as an “extremely capable, trustworthy and likeable individual.”
Handing down a six-month suspension order that prevented Fussell working within the time period, the NMC stated: “Although serious, Mr Fussell’s misconduct is capable of remedy and he has demonstrated, through significant insight and remediation as set out above, that any risk of repetition has been greatly reduced.
“As such, Mr Fussell’s conduct is not fundamentally incompatible with continued registration.”
The NMC said the order was “the appropriate and proportionate sanction.”
Thousands Leaving Profession
The high number of suspension orders against nursing and midwifery staff comes just months after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said tens of thousands of skilled and valuable staff had left the profession.Between 2018 and 2022, nearly 43,000 people aged 21 to 50 left the NMC register, according to the RCN.
Years of under-funding—including a decade of real-terms pay cuts—is being blamed for the exodus.
The RCN also listed poor pay, insufficient staffing to ensure patient safety, harassment, workplace discrimination, a lack of career progression, and unsafe working conditions as reasons why nurses were turning their backs on the profession.
On Tuesday, the RCN—which represents most nurses—voted against a deal to accept a pay offer from the government.
Unison, GMB, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, and the Royal College of Midwives were supported the 5 percent pay offer, plus a cash top up.
RCN is re-balloting its members for a mandate to strike, which could lead to action taking place up until Christmas.
