Remember the blog about the dental nurse being brought before the GDC FtP Committee for doing tooth whitening on a friend?
Well, the case has been heard and the nurse in question never appeared nor was she represented; fortunately, the very educated and wise Committee realised that they were unable to prove any of the allegations (due to the poor level of evidence?) and the case has been concluded.
You can read the full determination on the GDC website. But I still question the validity of bringing this case before the FtP Committee in the first place.
On reading the determination, I can only assume that this was an instance of grudge type reporting.
It seems that much of the evidence was based on hearsay and gossip and failed to really deliver the point!
I will ask the same question that I asked in the first piece; how could the cost of bringing this case be justified? It was listed for three days and appears to have taken two days at a huge cost of registrants’ money that has failed, repeat failed to serve to protect the public in any way whatsoever.
Indeed when read, the determination does not at any stage mention patient safety or protection and just states about the misuse of materials (which is surely a criminal act and should be the remit of the police?).
It appears that the DN in question was subject to some form of internal disciplinary procedure that seems to have failed(?) It also appears that some of the evidence presented to the Committee was made up as the Committee completely rejected some parts of it as being invalid as they could not have formed part of the disciplinary interview!
I was not at the hearing but goodness, how I wish I had been. The Committee points out that it is the responsibility of the GDC to prove its case and with this in mind, it appears that the Committee was not pleased with the evidence presented!
The GDC FtP caseworkers and indeed the GDC Investigating Committee really should be brought to task over this case. It should never have been brought given the apparent lack of evidence, it has wasted three valuable days of Committee time and wasted many £000s of registrants money but most importantly, given the nature of the allegations, I still fail to see how this case could ever be seen as to acting in the public interest given that any sanction to the registrant would and could have only ever been punitive!
I am seriously considering making a Freedom of Information request to find out quite how much of registrants money this really cost!
