Nurse gambled away £2,000 of NHS money on work phone

A SENIOR nurse who gambled away thousands of pounds of NHS money on his work phone has been struck off.

Cyril Palada lost more than £2,000 during shifts over the course of one year, by billing his stake to the health service mobile.

When confronted by managers and asked if he knew he was using his work phone to gamble, the “deplorable” nurse replied: “I need to go home.”

Mr Palada, 44, was a clinical site manager at the University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London, where he had worked for 10 years.

A Nursing and Midwifery Council disciplinary hearing was told the nurse accessed numerous gambling sites.

He was given the phone to “ensure patient safety” and make sure that people were allocated the right beds. However, for more than a year during shifts he was racking up thousands of pounds of debt on the trust’s phone bill.

In November 2017, he was asked whether he knew anything about the gambling sites his phone was signed up to. He later admitted registering to the sites using his work phone because he had “self-excluded” his own personal mobile number from them.

He was asked to attend a disciplinary meeting in April 2018 but decided not to attend and was dismissed.

The panel said it was “of the view that fellow professionals and the public would find Mr Palada’s conduct deplorable”. It said it had no information as to whether he had paid back any of the £2,410 he had stolen as he had not attended disciplinary meetings.

He was given an 18-month interim suspension, during which time he can appeal, after which he will be struck off.