The NMC Disappoints Me Again, Why Aren’t I Surprised

I am disappointed and disillusioned by the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council). What can I do about it?

Last week their tribunal found Donna Wood guilty of “dishonesty” (1) and she has been suspended from practising as a nurse for two months (2). Yet this whole process has left a nasty taste in my mouth because from all the reports I have read of her tribunal I cannot see what evidence they based their decision on.

Dr Martin Dheal, a consultant psychiatrist who also volunteered to look after Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, said: "I can't help but think that part of what's happened subsequently is just scapegoating, and trying to deflect blame on to individuals" (2). I agree with him. This and the persecution of Pauline Cafferkey (3) has left me with the deep feeling that NMC is not professionally regulating nursing, but is instead bowing to pressure from NHS institutions.

Donna Wood was accused of falsifying the record of Pauline Cafferkey’s temperature on a screening form at Heathrow Airport, yet the tribunal couldn’t even determine who wrote actually the temperature on the form (1).

Pauline Cafferkey, Donna Wood and Dr Hannah Ryan (A newly qualified doctor who also volunteered to look after Ebola patients) all took each other’s temperatures at the screening centre, when they arrived back into Heathrow from Sierra Leone, because there were no Public Health England clinicians available to do so (1, 2 & 4). 

From the reports of her tribunal I have read, Donna Wood seems to have been convicted only on the evidence of Hannah Ryan; yet Hannah Ryan is also facing a GMC disciplinary panel next year for her actions at Heathrow Airport (4), she physically took Pauline Cafferkey’s temperature. Why did the tribunal place so much emphasis on her testimony? Her testimony should have been questionable at most. Hannah Ryan was testifying to the NMC tribunal, ahead of her own GMC tribunal, the tribunal should have questioned how much of her testimony was placing herself in a good light. Her evidence was that it was Donna Wood who said to record a falsely low temperature on Pauline Cafferkey. In the end it seemed to be Hannah Ryan’s word against Donna Wood’s. 

There is a lot of discussion and evidence of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony on its own (5, 6, 7 & 8). In British law we have The Turnbull Guidelines (9) whereas if a defendant has been identified solely on eyewitness testimony then a judge has to give instruction to a jury on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. This NMC tribunal has just seemed to have accepted Hannah Ryan’s testimony without question.

Donna Wood’s treatment at the hands of the NMC has left me feeling disgusted and also very unsafe. The evidence against her was thin and she was put into a ridiculous position by Public Health England’s chaotic organisation of the screening centre at Heathrow (This blog goes into much more detail of that); yet the NMC tribunal has found her guilty. The NMC does not seem to have questioned the nature of the complaint against her (Public Heath England brought complaints against Pauline Cafferkey, Donna Wood and Hannah Ryan after Pauline Cafferkey developed Ebola, shifting the blame?) nor have they seemed to question the nature of evidence against Donna Wood.

If a patient was to make a malicious and false complaint against me, what chance would I have to clearing my name if this is how the NMC works?

Drew Payne

Just When I Thought the NMC Had Hit Rock Bottom…

They go and prove me wrong.

I was disgusted at the NMC’s treatment of Pauline Cafferkey, and expressed it in this blog. She was the nurse who contracted Ebola, while volunteering to look after Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, but her symptoms didn’t appear until she was on her way home. The NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) charged her with misconduct for having a temperature and for someone else recording it wrong. She wasn’t on duty, she didn’t take her own temperature and no one caught Ebola from her. She was cleared of all charges when the NMC tribunal collapsed and very quickly (1).

With the tribunal collapsing so fast I thought that it was the end of it all, but no. Not being able to prosecute Pauline Cafferkey, they have turned their attention to the woman who wrote down Pauline Cafferkey’s temperature.

Donna Wood is now facing charges of misconduct, bought against her by the NMC, the regulator of her own profession (2). She was one of the first British nurses to volunteer to look after Ebola patients in West Africa. She was on the same flight back to the UK as Pauline Cafferkey and she walked into the same chaos at Heathrow Airport as Pauline Cafferkey.

Public Health England (3) organised the screening of passengers at risk of being infected with Ebola at Heathrow Airport. But of this screening process was shown to be chaotic and extremely poorly organised (4). Half of the people screening passengers were administration workers from the Cabinet Office, with no clinician experience. The manager of the screening centre was a former Metropolitan police officer, not a doctor or a nurse, he didn’t have the clinical experience to run a screening centre and he didn’t even have the correct telephone number for the infectious diseases consultant at Northwick Park hospital, the north-west London hospital were any suspected Ebola patients were to be taken. Pauline Cafferkey were classified as category 2, which related to journalists and others who only visited Ebola treatment centres, and not category 3, which was for healthcare workers who had been looking after Ebola patients.

Donna Wood walked into all this chaos. She was tired after nursing Ebola patients for several months, wearing full protective clothing in a hot climate, she was tired from a long flight home, she was in a noisy and chaotic environment, is it any wonder she made a mistake writing down a colleague’s temperature. But she should never have been put into this position, she should never have been asked to check a colleague’s temperature. There should have been enough experienced healthcare professionals to screen passengers, healthcare professionals who knew what to do with a person who had a temperature.

Donna Wood wasn’t on duty when this occurred, she wasn’t caring for patients, she was passenger flying into Heathrow Airport. She was tired and in chaotic and unbelievably poorly managed environment. She made a momentary mistake, she misheard what another person said (She was not the person who actually took Pauline Cafferkey’s temperature) in a noisy environment. No one caught Ebola from Pauline Cafferkey, there was no cross infection, so why is Donna Wood being persecuted?

The NMC has a screening process where they check the validity of all complaints (5), they say they weed out complaints were there is no case to answer. Why weren’t Pauline Cafferkey’s and Donna Wood’s cases weeded out at this point? Both these complaints were made by Public Health England, in a blatant case of passing the blame and drawing attention away from them, yet the NMC seems to have just rolled over and done what Public Health England wanted.

Donna Wood’s tribunal has already begun (2), but I really hope it collapses the way Pauline Cafferkey’s did (1). Donna Wood does not deserve this treatment, even if she did write down the wrong temperature it was during an extremely chaotic situation. Would someone who had witnessed the horrors of Ebola first hand deliberately have covered up a potential case of it?

Public Health England has not been held responsible for the shambolic way they conducted the Ebola screening at Heathrow. They are the ones responsible for this mess and yet they are the ones still trying to pass the blame onto other people.

Public Health England and the NMC are both ultimately responsible to Jeremy Hunt, as Health Minister, and what has he said about this mess and passing of the blame? Nothing. I cannot find any statements of his about all of this, but then I am not surprised. He hasn’t proved himself a competent Minister of Health so far.

Pauline Cafferkey’s tribunal fell apart and hopefully Donna Wood’s will too. This has been a complete waste of time and money, none of this has been in the public interest and it borders on a witch hunt. Again the NMC has shown themselves as less than competent at regulating the nursing profession. How can I trust them to treat me with any fairness and honesty now?

Drew Payne

How Can I Trust the NMC?

On the 14^th September (1), Pauline Cafferkey was cleared of all misconduct charges brought against her but why did the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2) even allow this to get a tribunal? They were so obviously unfounded charges.

Ms Cafferkey was accused of not reporting her temperature, when she returned to Healthrow after volunteering to nurse Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, and allowing an incorrect temperature being recorded on her. She was accused of being “dishonest”. She was not on duty, she was not carrying out any clinical work, she’d had her temperature taken for her. She was tired and ill and walked into the chaos that was screening process at Healthrow airport, which Public Health England failed to organise.

After a one day hearing, were the NMC lawyer ended up arguing against her own case (1), the following day the tribunal dismissed all charges against Ms Cafferkey. But why did the NMC allow this complaint to go to a tribunal? For a case to fall apart so quickly there was not such substance to the charges, yet the NMC does not seem to have investigated them. If they had properly investigated this complaint that could have saved Ms Cafferkey the stress of facing a tribunal, a woman who has survived Ebola, and saved all the expense of a tribunal.

The original complaint against her was made by Public Health England (1), the very organisation that failed to organise effective screening of the returning healthcare workers when Ms Cafferkey landed into Healthrow airport.

Again, the NMC is left looking like the villain of this story. They are seen attacking a nurse who selflessly volunteered to care for Ebola patients, herself contracting Ebola. No one caught Ebola from Ms Cafferkey, she caused no cross infection. At the time this “incident” happened she wasn’t even on duty as a nurse. Why did the NMC let this complaint go to a tribunal?

How can nurses have confidence in the NMC, the governing body of our profession, after their treatment of Pauline Cafferkey?

From their own figures (3), in a document they sent out to all nurses in 2015, two-thirds of NMC tribunals dismissed the charges brought against the nurses. 87% of nurses’ yearly registration fees goes to funding the NMC’s Fitness to Practice hearings (NMC tribunals) (4), but only 2% is spent on education of nurses (3). All nurses have to pay their yearly NMC fees to be able to stay working as nurses because the NMC also manages the registry of all practicing nurses in the UK.

Why is the NMC spending so much of our money on Fitness to Practice hearings? Have they no process to weed out the malicious and untrue complaints? Their website certainly gives no reassurance to nurses, and we are the people who fund them (2).

The NMC’s persecution of Pauline Cafferkey gives me no confidence. What if a patient makes a false or malicious complaint about me? How can I trust the NMC to treat me fairly when they treated Pauline Cafferkey like this? What am I paying nursing resignation fee for when the NMC mismanages it the way they did with Pauline Cafferkey?

(This was originally written as an opinion piece for Nursing Standard)

Drew Payne

3 – NMC Update, Issue 3, 2015