Nurse struck off after accepting £100 gift from patient’s relative
Posted 19 October 2022 - 11:44
NMC fitness to practise hearing found Ann Goodfellow failed to declare the cash gift and informed her manager that the sum was just £20
A nurse has been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) after accepting £100 as a gift from a patient’s relative.
Ann Goodfellow was working as a registered nurse at Drummond Grange Care Home, near Edinburgh, when she was given £100 cash from a relative in May 2020.
Bag of sweets and crisps also contained envelope with £100 in cash
An NMC fitness to practise (FtP) hearing found Ms Goodfellow, who joined the register in 1992, had failed to declare the gift and later informed her manager that the sum was just £20.
The hearing heard how a relative of a resident had gifted a bag of sweets and crisps, which also contained an envelope addressed to Ms Goodfellow.
Two managers opened the envelope where they discovered a card stating: ‘thank you Nettie [Ms Goodfellow] and all staff for looking after my wee man’ and £100 in cash. They then sent the bag with the envelope, card and cash up to the unit where it was handed to the nurse.
Later that day it is alleged that the deputy manager asked Ms Goodfellow: ‘If the envelope had contained any cash and she said it did not.’
After she was confronted by the care home’s manager for a third time, Ms Goodfellow admitted putting the £100 in her pencil case and was intending to give it back to the relative. She then returned the money to the manager.
Hearing told that nurse was aware of policy regarding receipts of gifts
One witness told the FtP hearing: ‘I am also confident of Ms Goodfellow’s awareness of the policy regarding receipt of gifts, as they had previously followed it, when the same resident’s relative tried to give £500 to staff.
‘On this occasion Mrs Goodfellow approached me immediately to inform me of the gift and we arranged for it to be returned to the resident’s relative.’
The NMC panel found that the nurse’s conduct had breached the code’s professional standards of practice, which states nurses and midwives should ‘refuse all but the most trivial gifts, favours or hospitality as accepting them could be interpreted as an attempt to gain preferential treatment’.
The NMC found that Ms Goodfellow’s actions were dishonest and ‘that the misconduct is serious as the public would expect a registered nurse not to take money from residents or their relatives’.
She has been struck off from the register with an interim suspension order of 18 months to allow for appeal.
Find out more
Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practise Committee: Substantive Meeting
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