An Edinburgh carer has been given a six-month warning after breaking Covid rules during the height of the pandemic.
Bree McKay will have a six-month warning placed on her registration after entering a colleague's house and allowing a colleague to enter her house, during one of the Covid lockdowns.
The Scottish Social Services Council decided there was evidence to suggest that while employed as a care assistant by J&J Perry Ltd trading as Bluebird Care Edinburgh, McKay, contrary to Covid-19 Government legislation, allowed a colleague to enter her property.
Since the incident, Bluebird Care Edinburgh have confirmed that Ms McKay is no longer employed for the company.
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Adding to this, in March 2021, McKay also entered the home of two other colleagues.
During this period, the whole country was placed in a strict lockdown following an increase in Covid cases throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK.
People were not permitted to gather indoors during this period, meaning McKay's actions went against the Government guidance at the time.
The SSSC decided that McKay's fitness to practice is impaired because social service workers must not behave, while inside or outside work, in a way which would bring their suitability to work in social services into question.
They added: "They are expected to uphold the law and not engage in offending behaviour. Your behaviour breached the COVID-19 government legislation and was serious. Your actions had the potential to cause harm to vulnerable people that you are entrusted to provide care for.
"You demonstrated poor personal judgement which fell below the standard of conduct expected of social service workers. It is important that proper standards of conduct and behaviour are seen to be upheld. You have behaved in a manner which could undermine public trust and confidence in the profession.
"A reasonable member of the public, in possession of all of the circumstances of your case, would consider the reputation of the profession to be damaged if a finding of impairment was not made."
Due to the reasons mentioned above, the council were in agreement that McKay placed vulnerable people, in her care and the wider public, at risk, her actions amounted to a pattern of behaviour and amounted to an abuse of trust.
However, factors considered in her favour included the fact that she demonstrated insight, regret and remorse for her actions, she has a good previous history with the SSSC, she remained working in the same setting with no further concerns of this nature being raised and cooperated with the SSSC's investigation.
The council concluded by mentioning that it is also unlikely that these actions will be repeated.
A spokesperson for Bluebird Care Edinburgh said that the company do not tolerate any sort of behaviour that would jeopardise the health and wellbeing of their patients and customers.
They added: "We always put our customers first and, throughout the pandemic, we have always done everything we can to make sure that they stay safe and well.
"We have a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour which may jeopardise the health and wellbeing of our customers, and this includes breaking social distancing guidelines as well as our own COVID-19 safety rules during the pandemic."
"After learning of an incident that took place outside of work time, but which involved an employee, we took immediate action to suspend the individual in question, who is no longer employed by Bluebird Care Edinburgh. We will always take action to make sure our team share our values and put the safety of customers first."
