Nursing associate banned for taking nurse shifts

A nursing associate has been struck off after working hundreds of shifts as a registered nurse despite not being qualified.

Judith Isaacs accepted 339 shifts as a mental health nurse at five NHS trusts in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire between October 2021 and February 2023.

This is a role that carries greater responsibility and higher pay than she was entitled to.

Ms Isaacs "pleaded" with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for a second chance and blamed an agency that organised the shifts. However, a panel found she had not properly raised concerns at the time.

The agency said an administrative error meant Ms Isaacs was treated as a registered nurse rather than a nursing associate, a role that bridges the gap between health and care assistants and nurses.

The regulator said the trusts' total loss amounted to £186,000 and that Ms Isaacs would have made "significant personal financial gain".

The NMC panel found Ms Isaacs had a "moral duty" to inform the agency that she had been deployed to a role that she was not qualified to undertake.

She was initially referred to the NMC by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust in March 2023, for which she had worked 122 shifts.

Ms Isaacs also worked at Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust, Great Western Hospital Trust in Swindon, Salisbury NHS Trust and Royal Berkshire NHS Trust in Reading.

A member of the agency's staff said they "would have expected" Ms Isaacs to raise the "significant uplift" in her pay immediately but that she failed to do so.

The NMC panel said she had "ample" opportunity to raise those concerns.

In a statement to the NMC, Ms Isaacs said she "sincerely and deeply regretted" what had happened.

She said she had never intended to mislead and that she had been "over-trusting".