Nurse struck off after sparking HIV scare with dodgy Botox jabs

A NURSE who used an unhygienic syringe during Botox treatments has been struck off after she left two women fearing they might have contracted HIV.

Caroline McIntosh, 61, was found guilty of misconduct after she was spotted emptying the chemical back into a bottle from a used syringe.

Two clients, a veterinary nurse and her mother-in-law, underwent six months of blood tests after McIntosh, from Portsmouth, administered the beauty treatments at the back of a second-hand bridalwear shop.

The veterinary nurse was shocked when at the end of her £250 top-up treatment, she saw McIntosh squirt leftover Botox back into a bottle from the syringe she used for the jab. She later texted McIntosh: ‘You need to be careful, as if other clients have infections/diseases then you could be infecting others.’

McIntosh, a registered nurse since 1992, replied that she didn’t normally do that, but ‘you look safe’. Striking McIntosh off, Gary Mortimer, of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s misconduct panel, said her actions were ‘extremely serious and had the potential for future cross-contamination’.

McIntosh, who does not have a qualification to prescribe treatments including Botox, was also found to have made no clinical assessment or taken proper records.

A third client complained that her lips swelled in a ‘lumpy’ way after getting filler from McIntosh, leading to another proven misconduct charge.

The panel found McIntosh’s actions between November last year and February this year were ‘so serious and wide-ranging’ that she had to be struck off. She left Solent NHS Trust several months before the case.