Suspended nurse is struck off

A MENTAL health nurse who carried on working despite being suspended has been banned from the profession.

Stephen Francis Johnson was working for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, in child and adolescent mental health services, when he was suspended by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

However, he didn’t tell either the trust or his agency employers about his suspension and carried on working until his deception was discovered. Following a hearing in London, which Mr Johnson didn’t attend, he has now been struck off by an NMC disciplinary panel.

Mr Johnson, who qualified as a mental health nurse in 1995, was suspended on October 3, 2014, in relation to his previous job as a child mental health worker with the Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, based in Wigan. He admitted driving a car belonging to the trust without permission and forging a note which he claimed was from his GP.

By the time of his suspension, he was working - through an agency - as a case manager with the Bolton trust’s child mental health department. He was found out on October 22, 2014, and admitted he had been suspended, but claimed he didn’t believe he needed to be a registered nurse for the job he was doing.

However, the NMC panel found this was ‘not credible’, as he was an experienced nurse who must have realised the case manager job was a ‘clinical role’.