Former Winchester nurse who stole £15,000 allowed to carry on in profession (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Former Winchester nurse who stole £15,000 allowed to carry on in profession

1:40pm Friday 15th June 2012 in News

A FORMER Winchester nurse who stole more than £15,000 has been allowed to carry on in her profession after a disciplinary hearing.

Julie Pigrome kept wages she had been mistakenly paid after leaving her job at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

A hearing on Wednesday (June 5) heard that Mrs Pigrome pleaded guilty at Winchester Crown Court in December 2010 to stealing £15,628.22 between October 2008 and November 2009. She was conditionally discharged for two years.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council later charged her with misconduct which she has admitted.

The panel heard that she worked for Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust as a health care support worker from March 1999 to September 2008.

After she left, the trust carried on paying her, although she emailed them to tell them of their error.

In December 2009 the trust finally realised that Mrs Pigrome had been receiving regular monthly salary payments.

In a ruling the NMC panel said: “Although she attempted to do so, Mrs Pigrome failed effectively to bring this overpayment to the trust’s attention and by the time that the trust realised its error she had succumbed to temptation and had spent the money.

“Mrs Pigrome told the panel that she had not spent the money on luxuries, but instead had spent it on household necessities. The overpayment was valued at approximately £22,000 gross, £15,600 net. She was arrested in September 2010.”

Since her conviction Mrs Pigrome has paid back some £4,000 at a rate of £250 a month.

The NMC panel said that the misconduct was serious but that there is no risk of it happening again and that her fitness to practise was not impaired.