London senior nurse struck off over pandemic taxi fraud
- Published
Ms Harris told the panel she "made up some names" when booking the taxis, but she used patients' names 11 times
A senior nurse in London has been struck off for wrongfully ordering herself taxis totalling more than £5,000 during the pandemic.
Sarah Harris made more than 100 bookings from St Thomas' Hospital to addresses near her home, a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel heard.
Ms Harris told the panel she "made up some names" when booking the taxis, but she used patients' names 11 times.
Her activity was discovered after a whistleblower told the hospital.
The hearing was told she made the bookings, which cost about £42 per journey, between April and December 2020, using her mobile phone number and charging the journeys to the NHS.
'I was so afraid'
A panel heard Ms Harris initially denied the allegations but within 24 hours confessed, saying in a statement to her manager in December 2020 she had "booked a taxi on a number of occasions" to locations near her Bromley home.
She said this was because she wanted to "travel separately from the public", writing in a statement of reflection she was "constantly terrified of Covid 19".
She added: "I saw countless bodies being moved to the morgue daily, which made me so afraid."
Ms Harris was sacked by the NHS trust in May 2021 but in November 2023 she told the NMC hearing she had grown since her wrongdoing and was no longer the same person.
At the time of the hearing, she had paid back the £5,198.40 of taxi costs in full and was working in a new job at a GP surgery.
She also said her "spirituality" and "faith" would prevent her from being dishonest again in the future.
'Premeditated'
However, the fitness to practise panel decided to impose its most serious punishment on Ms Harris and banned her from working as a nurse, saying she had "limited insight" over the incident.
It said she "did not demonstrate a full understanding of the motivations for [her] behaviour" and, as a result, there was a risk of "further dishonest acts" in the future.
Explaining its decision to remove Ms Harris's name from the register, the panel said: "Your actions were premeditated, sophisticated and deliberate.
"You used patients' names and details. You fabricated names. You created false addresses within the locality of your home.
"This was to conceal your fraud. This was a very serious breach of trust."
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