Nurse used funds from patient activity budget for staff party
Posted 04 September 2024 - 11:00
Mental health nurse who was trying to raise staff morale not ‘inherently dishonest’ but must serve two-month suspension, says NMC fitness to practise panel
A nurse who arranged for £500 from a patient activity budget to be used for a staff Christmas party to ‘improve morale’ has been suspended for two months by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
Mental health nurse Marcia Harding told the managing director at Priory Hospital Avesbury House, a rehabilitation and recovery facility in London, that she had taken patients out for meals during the festive period in December 2022. This was to account for two inaccurate receipts for £250 each, purporting to be payments to a restaurant.
The money had instead been used to help pay for a staff party that patients did not attend.
Intention was to boost staff morale, but approach was ‘misguided and unethical’, panel told
The NMC’s fitness to practise (FtP) panel heard that Ms Harding had fully admitted wrongdoing and that her intention had been to ‘uplift staff morale during a challenging period’.
Her legal representative, Simon Holborn from NMC Watch, told the panel she now understood her approach was ‘misguided and unethical’.
While working as director of clinical services, Ms Harding liaised with the financial director and booked a venue for the staff Christmas party on 10 December 2022. The cost was £42 per person, with the Priory Group agreeing to contribute £20 per person to the event, meaning individuals would have to pay £22 each to attend.
Staff members were initially asked to contribute £25 per person, but this was later changed to £15. Because of a high number of people dropping out, just £400 was collected for the party, leaving a shortfall in the payment due to the venue.
Ms Harding then asked a junior colleague working as a finance administrator to take money from the patient activity budget, which was underspent, and to create two fake receipts for Christmas lunches for patients.
The junior colleague later reported what had happened to the managing director, and an investigation was launched by the employer. Ms Harding admitted falsifying documents and resigned from her position. An internal investigation later found her actions amounted to gross misconduct.
Panel accepts nurse showed remorse and her actions were not due to greed or dishonesty
Mr Holborn said she had ‘come to realise that [her] actions stemmed from a place of desperation to improve staff morale, but [she] acknowledges that this does not excuse the breach of trust and professional standards that occurred’.
He said Ms Harding was a ‘dedicated and dependable’ nurse who had undertaken a number of remedial steps, including reflective practice, training in ethics and financial management, and having counselling for stress.
The panel agreed that there was minimal risk that Ms Harding would repeat her actions and handed her a two-month suspension. It told her: ‘The situation arose not because of any greed on your part, but because of the need to deal with the difficulty that there was an outstanding sum due to the venue not covered by the contribution of those who had attended.’
It added: ‘The panel was satisfied that you are not an inherently dishonest person and it accepts that you have shown remorse, for example by resigning your position and offering to repay the money.’
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