A NURSE who admitted not informing her current employer that her fitness to practice had been called into question has been cleared of misconduct.

A conduct and competence committee hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in Cardiff took five days to determine the case against nurses Tina Cullen and Joanna Lloyd.

The pair was alleged to have allowed staff at the Red Rose care home in Ebbw Vale, where they worked, to take home surplus medicine for personal use

The panel determined that there was insufficient evidence to enable the charge against them to be proved on the balance of probabilities.

Ms Cullen did admit not disclosing to her employer that her fitness to practice had been called into question due to the investigation between November 2013 and February 2014.

The panel met today to decide if that one charge amounts to misconduct.

The panel concluded that not disclosing the information to her employer did fall short of the standards expected of a registered nurse. But that her conduct was not serious enough to be treated as misconduct.

A further three charges against Ms Cullen, which alleged that she also took overstocked medication, and that she was dishonest to her current employer were also dropped, as the panel noted that witness evidence of the alleged incident was inconsistent and contradictory.

They also noted that on her response to the charge form in December 2013, Ms Cullen provided contact details for her current employer which does not follow that she was deliberately trying to withhold information from them.

Ms Cullen told the panel how staff attitudes at Red Rose care home changed towards her when she reported a staff member to Ms Lloyd for catheterizing a resident without the proper permission in March 2013.

She said: “After that the staff hated me.”

She also described how the nurse in charge of the clinic would order medicine without checking stock levels so there was surplus.

When a stock take was recorded, any surplus medicine would be popped out of its packet and put in a green bin.

Mrs Cullen said that on March 19, 2013, she sat for hours with Ms Lloyd doing this task, but denies the incident.

Last November, Mrs Cullen said she recalls receiving a letter outline an investigation and in February 2014, she told her current employer about it but she didn’t know about any incident.