Basingstoke children's home boss spent thousands on herself

Mrs Gardner was found to have spent hundreds of pounds on Boots products, including perfume, on the unit's procurement card

A manager of a children's home dishonestly bought items for herself including perfume and clothes on its procurement card, a panel has found.

Pamela Gardner was in charge of Firvale Respite Unit in Basingstoke for 10 years until she was sacked in 2018.

She spent at least £2,491.24 on the card on goods including toiletries and beauty products and made duplicate claims for items worth about £1,050.

She was struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) register.

It said her dishonesty was "fundamentally incompatible" with her remaining on it.

Mrs Gardner made at least 33 payments on the card between 2014 and 2018 for items including a Kipling laptop bag from Amazon for £73.49 and a lady shaver from Tesco for £24.

Mrs Gardner was in charge of the unit in Basingstoke for 10 years until she was sacked in 2018

Several transactions from Boots for perfume and beauty and dental products amounted to about £470.

The panel found she had deliberately tried to mask some of the purchases by mislabelling receipts for purchases.

On one of them, she labelled a receipt for beauty products and perfume from Boots worth £135.16 as one for a "hairdryer, brushes, toiletries and sun cream".

Another recorded a £129.99 handbag from TK Maxx as being for "pans, cutlery [and] plates".

The panel also found Mrs Gardner had made 18 duplicate claims after making legitimate purchases from the unit's petty cash account.

The NMC's panel said there was "no information" to suggest service users were harmed by the "misappropriation of funds".

But it said she had "breached the fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and brought its reputation into disrepute".

Hampshire County Council, which runs the unit, has been approached to comment.