Nurse Who Prescribed To Husband Struck Off, UK

Main Category: Medical Malpractice / Litigation
Also Included In: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 02 May 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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A 55 year old nurse from Cheshire who illegally prescribed conflicting prescriptions for her husband has been struck off the Nursing & Midwifery Council register following the outcome of a hearing by the regulatory body in London on Friday, 25 April 2008.

Sylvia Gillicker was employed as the Practice Nurse at Warrington's Causeway Medical Centre between January 2003 and July 2006 when she registered her husband at the Medical Centre as a temporary patient while already registered with his own GP. Ms Gillicker also prescribed medication for her husband after his registration status expired, and prescribed medication that conflicted with what he was already taking, posing a risk to his health.

The independent panel of the Conduct and Competence Committee heard evidence that Ms Gillicker was under stress at the time of the offences due to her husband's ill health and was aware of the potential to harm her husband by her behaviour. Despite expressing remorse, the panel found that Ms Gillicker's fitness to practise was impaired as her misconduct was sustained over an extensive period of time and involved successive breaches of trust and risk to a patient.

Responding to the panel's decision to strike Ms Gillicker from the register, NMC spokesperson Kristy Hempel said;

"Sylvia Gillicker's actions fell short of the standards set out in her Code of Conduct, and those of trust expected by someone in her caring profession. Although the panel sympathised with Ms Gillicker's situation and recognised that she acted under duress, the panel decided that to uphold the reputation of the nursing profession it was in the best interest to remove Ms Gillicker's registration status."

The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) is the UK regulator for two professions, nursing and midwifery. The primary purpose of the NMC is protection of the public. It does this through maintaining a register of all nurses, midwives and specialist community public health nurses eligible to practice within the UK and by setting standards for their education, training and conduct. Currently the number of registrants exceeds 674,000. The Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001 (The Order), sets out the NMC's role and responsibilities.

Nursing & Midwifery Council