Bargoed nurse struck off after 'crash for cash' conviction

An NHS nurse has been struck off for her part in one of the UK's biggest "crash for cash" insurance scams.

Nicola Bartlett, from Bargoed, Caerphilly county, was jailed for 12 months after lying about suffering injuries while working in a hospital.

She fraudulently claimed £16,764 in compensation, saying another driver ploughed into her car, writing it off.

A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel ruled she should never work as a nurse again.

Bartlett was one of more than 150 people convicted for their part in the £2m insurance racket.

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The former nurse at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital in Ystrad Mynach also treated her father for injuries from another bogus crash and made medical notes.

A fitness to practise hearing was told police had already started investigating the garage which wrote off her "damaged" vehicle in the insurance scam.

The "crash for cash" scammers were sentenced after a lengthy trail at Newport Crown Court

The garage owners were caught by their own CCTV cameras showing a Land Rover being deliberately driven into a forklift truck.

Bartlett was dismissed from Aneurin Bevan Health Board, covering the old county of Gwent in south Wales, for gross misconduct in August 2016.

The NMC disciplinary panel chair Robert Barnwell said Bartlett's actions "were significant departures from the standards expected of a registered nurse" and her crime was "fundamentally incompatible with Mrs Bartlett remaining on the register".

"Mrs Bartlett's actions were serious and to allow her to continue practising would undermine public confidence in the profession and in the NMC as a regulatory body," he said.