Texting Nurse Struck Off, UK

Main Category: Medical Malpractice / Litigation
Also Included In: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 20 Aug 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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A nurse has been struck off the professional register by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for making inappropriate contact with a female patient by leaving text and voicemail messages on her mobile telephone.

Dennis Dowle, 61, from Hastings, admitted sending six inappropriate messages while working as a charge nurse in a mental health unit at Woodlands, Sussex, where the woman was being treated. The most serious of these was one which said: "Hi ya, it's me. I am down at the swimming pool. Bit bored. I wondered whether you fancied a s**g? Talk to you again."

The independent panel of the NMC's Conduct and Competenece Committee said that the messages marked an unacceptable level of over-familiarity with the patient.

The panel were also concerned that Dowle had a significant lack of insight into the impropriety of sending the message as well as his own clinical behaviour.

Although Dowle had accepted that the messages were inappropriate, he said in a statement that he was attempting to communicate in a way that would reach out to the patient and there was absolutely no intention to seek anything more that a normal nurse-patient relationship with her.

Commenting on the panel's decision, NMC spokesperson Lesley Conway said:

"Messages such as those sent by Dowle could never be part of a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship. He has failed to act in a way that justifies the trust and confidence the public must have in a nurse.

"We consider this a very serious departure from the professional standards expected of a nurse towards a vulnerable female patient in the care of a mental health trust. He failed to observe the boundaries that must exist between nurse and patient to a very significant extent."

The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) is the UK regulator for two professions, nursing and midwifery. To be eligible to work as a nurse or midwife in the UK, they must be registered with the NMC. There are currently more than 674,000 nurses and midwives on the register. The primary purpose of the NMC is to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public. It does this through maintaining a register of all nurses and midwives to practise within the UK and by setting standards for their education, training and conduct.

The Nursing & Midwifery Council