A Fife support worker who smacked a vulnerable service user in the face during a violent attack has been struck off by a care watchdog.
Norma Everden was referred to the Scottish Social Services Council after being convicted at Dunfermline Sheriff Court in January this year.
She was fined £400 and the court imposed a £20 victim surcharge.
The 53-year-old was found to have assaulted a woman, referred to as user AA, by striking her on the cheek with her hand in December 2019 at an unnamed care home.
Her behaviour was found to be “deliberate and violent in nature” which “placed a vulnerable service user at risk of emotional and physical harm”, the SSSC said.
In a decision notice, they added: “Social service workers should not harm people who use services and should not place other people at unnecessary risk of harm.
“The public has the right to expect that social care workers will not engage in behaviour that would call into question their suitability to work in social care.
“You physically assaulted a service user AA by striking her on her left cheek. Your behaviour placed a vulnerable service user at risk of emotional and physical harm.
“Your physical violence calls into question your values and raises significant concerns about your suitability to work in the social services sector.
“A social care worker being convicted of such a serious offence raises significant value and character concerns that would be unlikely to be easily remediable.
“Your behaviour is attitudinal in nature. You have shown a disregard for the law and for a vulnerable person who you were trusted to care for and support.
“Your behaviour violated fundamental values of the caring profession (and) your actions are likely to have negatively impacted the public’s trust and confidence in the profession.
“The public has the right to expect that social care workers, in whom it places its trust and confidence, will uphold the law and will not engage in offending behaviour.
“Your behaviour was fundamentally incompatible with the conduct expected of a social care worker.”
The regulator said that while Everden had shown “insight and reflected on” her behaviour, no other sanction apart from a removal order was appropriate.
Her name has now been removed from the register and she is no longer allowed to practise in the care industry.
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