A NURSE who made 'inappropriate' physical contact with a patient and left a ward unattended has been suspended from the profession.

Michael Greevy has been barred for a period of six months after appearing before a two-day Nursing and Midwifery Council last month.

The panel heard that the mental health nurse had worked unsupervised at Summerville Care Home in Stockton Heath in February 2017, when he was subject to conditions requiring him to practice only when another nurse was present.

These conditions had been imposed the previous month, after Mr Greevy was dismissed from his role working at the Priory Hospital Cheadle Royal.

He 'lifted his foot and made contact with a patient' having made multiple medication errors over the course of three days, before leaving a ward without ensuring there was another qualified member of staff present.

Mr Greevy then worked unsupervised at the Hilltop Road care home and two other sites in Cheshire a total of five times in February 2017.

He failed to inform a total of five care homes and hospitals - including Summerville Care Home - he worked at in January and February that year about his conditions of practise, as well as his employer Search Consultancy Recruitment Agency.

The panel heard that Mr Greevy's original actions had been a 'very serious but short-lived incident in a successful 27-year nursing career' and that he was 'ashamed' of his behaviour.Mr Greevy was also 'under extreme personal stress' at time of the incident following the breakdown of his long-term relationship.

NMC panel chairman Jacqueline Alexander said: "The panel found that your multi-faceted and wilful disregard of the order imposed by your regulator was behaviour that fell seriously short of the conduct and standards expected of a nurse, and amounted to misconduct.

"This panel was of the opinion that the allegations that were considered at the time of the imposition of the interim order were serious.

"They included medication errors, potentially inappropriate contact with a patient and leaving a ward unattended.

"There were clearly good reasons to impose item conditions to restrict your practice, and the disregard and dishonest concealment of those conditions could have resulted in unwarranted harm to patients.

"Your dishonesty was a clear breach of a fundamental tenet of the profession and brought the nursing profession into disrepute.

"Although you told the panel that you have learned a serious lesson from this experience, it was not convinced that you fully appreciate the consequences of failing to adhere to an order imposed by your regulator.

"The panel was therefore of the view that there remains a risk of repetition and was satisfied that a finding of impairment is necessary on the grounds of public protection."

A spokesman for Summerville Care Home said: “Michael Greevy has never been an employee of our home or our organisation.

"He worked for a temporary staffing agency, and Mr Greevy was at the home for only a few hours on one day. Two permanently employed nurses were on shift at the same time, alongside our full care team.

“We were extremely disappointed to later find that Mr Greevy lied about his NMC registration to the temporary staffing agency.

“The health, safety and wellbeing of our Residents is our absolute priority. We fully support the actions of the NMC in their recent hearing, and always ensure our own staff have the appropriate registrations in place.”