NMC panel criticised after High Court finds decision‑making fell below the standard of justice

Allowing the appeal, the judge stressed that the court was not deciding whether the allegations were true or false, but whether the disciplinary process had been fair.

“The manner in which the Panel reached, and/or explained, its decision-making falls short of the standard of justice to which [the Appellant nurse] was entitled,” she said.

The court found multiple problems with the panel’s reasoning. Chief among them was what the judge described as a failure properly to apply the burden of proof. Rather than requiring the NMC to prove the allegations, the panel appeared to expect the Appellant nurse to explain why the patient might have made false accusations.

The judge also criticised the panel for failing to engage adequately with inconsistencies in the patient’s evidence and with the practical realities of intensive care nursing. Evidence before the panel suggested many of the alleged incidents would likely have been witnessed by other staff in the busy ICU environment, yet no colleague directly corroborated the claims.

Professional witnesses had also described some of the allegations as improbable or physically impossible, including suggestions that the Appellant nurse moved the patient alone while maintaining a protected airway or poured liquid directly into the patient’s penis.

Mrs Justice Collins Rice said the panel’s reasoning repeatedly reduced the case to a simple preference for the patient’s account over the Appellant nurse’s without sufficiently explaining why.

The court also noted the panel had failed visibly to apply guidance about the Appellant nurse’s previously unblemished career and “good character”, which could have been relevant both to credibility and to the likelihood of the alleged conduct.

The judgment highlighted concerns about the quality of the disciplinary proceedings more broadly, including “conspicuously poor” machine-generated hearing transcripts and what the judge considered an overly brief explanation for findings reached after weeks of evidence.

The High Court set aside the panel’s findings and sanction. The NMC and the Appellant nurse will now consider what steps should follow, including the possibility of a fresh hearing before a differently constituted panel.

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