AN agency nurse working at Royal Blackburn Hospital who was suspended after taking up employment as a registered nurse while she was subject to a conditions of practice order has been struck-off.

Ghazala Adman's fitness to practise was first found to be impaired and she was given a substantive conditions of practice order in November 2019. This was over alleged medication mistakes, and failing to maintain the dignity of a patient while he was using the toilet in incidents dating back to 2017.

She was told, among other conditions, she must inform the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) when taking up any other post, and these conditions were extended twice, most recently until May 2022.

However, at the beginning of May, during a third misconduct hearing review, the NMC found she had breached the conditions of practice order after taking up work at Banksfield Nursing Home in Preston between December 2019 and July 2020, failing to inform managers there of her situation.

She also administered medication whilst not being signed off and provided her employer with a falsely attained competency of medicines management certificate on June 3, 2020.

Mrs Adman was confronted about this breach on June 9 2020 and denied knowledge of it and of the conditions of practice order.

For this she was made subject to an interim suspension order which was imposed on January 8 this year.

READ MORE: Blackburn nurse suspended over medicine mishaps

At a final fitness to practise hearing at the end of August, four charges against her were proven:

  1. She failed to meet with her line manager at least once a month
  2. She deliberately intended to mislead Banksfield Nursing Home about her compliance with the conditions of practice order
  3. She misled Banksfield Nursing Home about being assessed as competent
  4. Her conduct demonstrated a lack of integrity in that she asked someone else to complete a medications competency assessment when she knew they were not qualified to do so

A NMC report from the hearing stated: “The Home checked Mrs Adman’s NMC PIN and found she was subject to the conditions of practice order imposed on November 8 2019.

“The NMC raises two regulatory concerns: a) That Mrs Adman practised as a nurse in breach of a substantive conditions of practice order first imposed by the NMC on November 8 2019; and b) Dishonesty, in that Mrs Adman obtained and/or provided a false medications management competency assessment in order to deliberately mislead her employer about her compliance with the substantive conditions of practice order.

“On November 24 2021, Mrs Adman responded to the regulatory concerns where she made admissions to four of the charges.”

Each of Mrs Adman’s breaches of the Nurses Code were found by the NMC to be serious in nature and constituted misconduct on each occasion because of their individual gravity and because she was dishonest over a prolonged period.

 

The report went on: “Whilst there is no evidence to suggest that Mrs Adman’s actions caused actual harm to patients, her dishonesty and failure to notify the Home of the substantive order and to comply with the conditions put patients at risk of significant harm.

“Furthermore, having breached multiple provisions of the Code, the panel determined that Mrs Adman’s misconduct had breached fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and therefore brought its reputation into disrepute.”

The NMC panel considered Mrs Adman’s case very carefully and decided to make a striking-off order.

The report added: “It directs the registrar to strike Mrs Adman off the register. The effect of this order is that the NMC register will show that Mrs Adman has been struck-off the register.

“Having regard to the effect of Mrs Adman’s actions in bringing the profession into disrepute by adversely affecting the public’s view of how a registered nurse should conduct herself, the panel has concluded that nothing short of this would be sufficient in this case.

“The panel considered that this order was necessary to mark the importance of maintaining public confidence in the profession, and to send to the public and the profession a clear message about the standard of behaviour required of a registered nurse.”

An interim suspension order of 18 months has been made to give Mrs Adman 28-days to make an appeal about the striking-off order.

If no appeal is made, then the interim suspension order will be replaced by the substantive striking-off order.