A Liverpool midwife has escaped a sanction after falsely claiming she had completed hundreds of hours of required work.
Ellen Burke claimed to have completed hundreds of hours of registered midwifery practice over a three-year period, according to documents made public by the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) investigation committee. However, after retiring Ms Burke has avoided punishment.
An NMC report said in an online revalidation submission dated June 2019, Ms Burke had completed 450 hours of registered midwifery practice in the previous three years. It became apparent this was not the case.
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In June last year, the NMC Registration Department raised concerns that Ms Burke - who first registered as a midwife in 2001 - appeared to have not worked in the midwifery profession for a number of years and was not deemed to meet the requirements to revalidate her registration as a Registered Midwife. The report said Ms Burke had not worked as a registered midwife since 2015.
It was alleged that Ms Burke may have incorrectly revalidated her registration in 2019, in which she declared that she had met the requirements to revalidate as a midwife. The charge of making an incorrect entry was accepted by the former midwife.
It was deemed as a result the only appropriate decision for the investigating committee panel to make was to remove Ms Burke from the NMC register. Legal representatives had sought to impose an interim suspension order of the former midwife “out of an abundance of caution” but it was noted that Ms Burke had stated she is retired and does not wish to return to work as a registered midwife.
The panel decided that in view of Ms Burke having retired from practice eight years ago, and as this was not a case where there was ever any suggestion of risk to the public, an interim order was not necessary on the grounds of public protection. The committee also decided as this was not a fraudulent entry case, the high bar had not been reached for imposing an interim order on public interest grounds alone. Finally, the panel decided that an interim order was not in Ms Burke’s own interests.
In conclusion, the panel determined that an interim order was not appropriate or necessary in this case.
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