NMC: nurse struck off for illegally obtaining UK passport
Posted 11 August 2022 - 11:46
Maidei Hukuimwe was convicted at Leeds Crown Court last year after she admitted paying a solicitor £2,000 for a false birth certificate
A nurse who used fake documents to illegally get a UK passport has been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
Mental health nurse Maidei Hukuimwe admitted paying a solicitor £2,000 for a false birth certificate to obtain a British passport to allow her the right to work in the UK.
Convicted nurse received nine-month suspended sentence
Ms Hukuimwe, originally from Zimbabwe, had been working for South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust for almost a decade before she was dismissed in January 2019 after the fraud was revealed. She had been on the NMC register since 2009.
In August 2021 she pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud at Leeds Crown Court and received a nine-month suspended sentence, a rehabilitation activity requirement and 120 hours of unpaid work.
In a hearing earlier this month the NMC struck her from the register following her conviction.
‘The panel considered that Ms Hukuimwe’s conduct was long-standing, premeditated and was done for her own personal gain,’ the NMC case report stated.
‘There is evidence of attitudinal problems due to the long-standing nature of Ms Hukuimwe’s dishonest conduct.’
Ms Hukuimwe, who undertook her nursing degree at the University of Huddersfield, was working as a senior clinical practitioner at a psychiatric unit at Fieldhead Hospital when the trust became aware that her passport may not be valid.
They had been contacted by letter advising that her Disclosure and Barring Service certificate from 2016 was no longer valid because her passport could not be verified.
NMC working to crackdown on incorrect or fraudulent entries to its own register
Ms Hukuimwe has used the date of birth on her Zimbabwean passport while studying, but used a different date to obtain her false British passport to gain employment as a nurse.
She was suspended from the trust pending a disciplinary investigation, during which the police advised the trust that they had ‘an interest’ in Ms Hukuimwe because two dates of birth had been identified for her. She later admitted to her employers and police that she had obtained false documents to obtain her British passport.
While in this case Ms Hukuimwe was struck off due to having a criminal conviction not a fraudulent registration, the NMC has been working separately to crackdown on incorrect or fraudulent entries to its own register.
Earlier this year the regulator confirmed they were taking steps to ensure that its registration process was as robust as possible. Data obtained by Nursing Standard shows that in the past five years some 101 nurses, midwives and nursing associates were removed from the register after being found to have deliberately misled the nursing regulator about their qualifications.
Last year, 11 people were removed from the NMC register following an investigation into the use of fake papers. In one case, a man practised as a nurse – unqualified – for nearly 20 years.
Further information
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