A care support worker who stole a bottle of liquid morphine from someone she was looking after has been struck off.
The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) also found that Lisa Smith had turned up at the house of a different client when she wasn’t working.
A panel felt removing her from the social services register was the “most appropriate” course of action.
Smith, from Sanquhar, had been a care at home support worker with Crossroads Caring Scotland in the Stewartry and Mid and Upper Nithsdale.
The panel found that in October 2019 she had stolen oramorph from a service user. They said Smith had “acted dishonestly, abused the trust and confidence placed in you as a social service worker, taken advantage of access to a service user’s medication, and you have caused a service user harm”.
Turning up at another service user’s house outwith work, which happened on more than one occasion between November 2019 and January 2020, placed the person “at risk of emotional harm by failing to maintain appropriate boundaries”.
The panel felt her behaviour was at “the higher end of the scale of seriousness”.
And they were concerned she had failed to show regret for her behaviour, which they described as “premeditated and intentional”.
They also noted that she had failed to co-operate with the SSSC and the theft of the medication “amounts to an abuse of the trust placed in you as a social services worker”.
The only factor in her favour was there had been no previous concerns over her conduct.
The panel felt removing Smith from the register was the only option as “it is both necessary and justified in the public interest and to maintain the continuing trust and confidence in the social service profession”.
