A mental health nurse from Nottinghamshire has been struck off the register after being sentenced in court for dangerous driving and failing to stop for police. Richard Lloyd Stone, who worked as a nurse in the county, committed the offences back in 2017, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council [NMC].
Stone was initially suspended but, in a hearing held by the NMC's Fitness to Practice Committee in February last year, the decision was made to impose a striking off order. It comes after Mr Stone was convicted of driving dangerously, without insurance and failing to stop back in December 2017. He was also convicted of failing to surrender to custody at Nottingham Magistrates' Court having previously been released on bail.
The hearing also referenced an email from Stone sent in December 2018, in which he says: "I do not feel there are any as the offence was not related to work at all, and [I]always managed any workload effectively with very infrequent errors over the 10years I have practised [sic] as a qualified nurse".
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Despite this, the three panel members at the NMC decided a striking off order was necessary, which means he will be unable to perform his former duties as a nurse - it is the most serious sanction the body can give out.
Their judgement states: "In reaching its decision, the panel was mindful of the need to protect the public, maintain public confidence in the profession and to declare and uphold proper standards of conduct and performance. The panel considered whether Mr Stone’s fitness to practise remains impaired.
It adds: "In all the circumstances, the panel considered that public confidence in the profession and the regulatory process would not be upheld by a lesser sanction than to remove Mr Stone’s name from the register. Furthermore, Mr Stone’s approach to his regulator since the substantive hearing and the two previous review hearings has raised fundamental questions about his intentions to demonstrate any insight to the NMC.
"The panel therefore determined that it was necessary to take action to prevent Mr Stone from practising in the future and concluded that the only sanction that would be appropriate and proportionate in the current circumstances, was a striking-off order."
The striking off order came into effect on March 17 this year, when the former nurse's previous suspension order expired.
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