Sacked nurse lied to get job as Northumbria police officer and resigned after being found out
A sacked nurse lied to get a job as a police officer and resigned after being found out. Former PC Stephen Hodgson altered and deleted patients’ records while working at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington[1], Northumberland[2]. His actions was found to be gross misconduct and he was dismissed by Northumbria NHS[3] Trust.
He later applied for a job as a police officer at Northumbria Police[4]. However he failed to disclose information about his five-year employment at the trust or his previous disciplinary hearing. The ex-officer was employed by the force and began working for them on September 2022.
Six months later, their professional standards department discovered former PC Hodgson had been sacked by the NHS and he was made subject to a misconduct hearing. On Tuesday afternoon, a panel found his conduct to be gross misconduct and said he would have been dismissed if he still worked for Northumbria Police. He resigned from the force in November last year.
A misconduct hearing at Houghton-le-Spring[5] police station heard how former PC Hodgson was employed as a nurse by Northumberland NHS Trust in September 2016. Steven Reed, for the appropriate authority, told the hearing how an incident occurred in the accident and emergency department of Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in March 2021. He said the former officer had been “falsifying patients’ records and deleting them in attempt to conceal his conduct.”
Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital. (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
Former PC Hodgson was subject to a misconduct hearing by the trust and his conduct was found to be gross misconduct.
He appealed their decision to dismiss him but it was rejected. The hearing heard how the Nursing and Midwifery Council also prevented him from practising as a nurse for 18 months. Mr Reed said former PC Hodgson submitted an online application form to join Northumbria Police in June 2022 but failed to declare all relevant information regarding his previous employment history.
He failed to include details about his employment at Northumbria NHS Trust and claimed that, for part of the time he worked at there, he was employed by another company. The panel heard that former PC Hodgson claimed the failure to include his employer of five years was an “oversight”. However Mr Reed said this was “implausible” and described his actions as “calculated deceit”.
He told the panel he had omitted the information to “deceive” Northumbria Police so that his previous dismissal for gross misconduct would not prevent him from being offered employment. The panel also heard how former PC Hodgson failed to declare details of a disciplinary hearing, which resulted in his dismissal from Northumbria NHS Trust, on his vetting form. In March last year, the professional standards department at Northumbria Police received information about the officer’s previous dismissal and he resigned in November.
Chair of the panel Edwin Buckett said former PC Hodgson had breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour (Honesty and Integrity) in relation to both allegations and his conduct amounted to gross misconduct. He said the only appropriate outcome would have been dismissal without notice, if he was still employed by the force. A Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Stephen Hodgson was dismissed from our employment in 2022.
We cannot comment any further in relation to this case.” The Nursing and Midwifery Council told ChronicleLive that former PC Hodgson is currently subject to an interim conditions of practice order and a further hearing will be listed in due course.
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References
- ^ Cramlington (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ Northumberland (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ NHS (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ Northumbria Police (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ Houghton-le-Spring (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ Join our Breaking News and Top Stories WhatsApp community (chat.whatsapp.com)
- ^ privacy notice (www.reachplc.com)
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