A nurse has been struck off for stealing items including a bottle of Chanel No 5 perfume from residents during her first night shift at a care home.
Michelle Mercedes Stampp-Nix was said to have raided the bags and cupboards of “vulnerable” residents and stolen a range of belongings, including bank cards. She was caught when her car boot was searched, revealing a large haul of stolen items.
A Nursing and Midwifery Council misconduct hearing has now struck off Stampp-Nix for breaching the “fundamental tenets of the nursing profession”.
The panel was told that the nurse was working through an agency at Sundridge Court care home, in southeast London.
In 2021, after her first night shift, Stampp-Nix removed Chanel perfume that had belonged to a patient referred to during the proceedings as Resident D. The nurse was also found to have tried to take the home’s iPad and charger.
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On that same day, Stampp-Nix failed to give a certain medication to another resident, while claiming that she had done so. She gave the wrong number of tablets to a second resident, and failed to give prescribed tablets to a third.
Other staff reported Stampp-Nix’s behaviour to the care home’s management, and police were called after the allegations of theft were made.
The care home provides residential care for dementia patients and the most recent assessment last year from the Care Quality Commission gives the facility an overall “good” rating.
In a witness statement, the deputy manager of the home said she had been called because Stampp-Nix was “acting very strange” and it appeared that she was stealing things.
The manager added that when the nurse’s car boot was searched, she “noticed in one of her bags a Chanel No 5 perfume which I knew belonged to one of our residents”. Stampp-Nix was asked to remove other items from her car and the manager said she found “more items from our residents … like clothing, toiletries and bank cards”.
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Managers then conducted an audit of medication at the care home, which revealed the nurse’s errors.
In its ruling, the panel said that “patients were put at risk of harm and were caused distress” by Stampp-Nix’s conduct. It noted that the nurse’s actions “were not isolated and demonstrated a course of conduct that fellow practitioners and members of the public would find deplorable and would not expect from a registered nurse”.
It concluded that the misconduct had “breached the fundamental tenets of the nursing profession and therefore brought its reputation into disrepute”.
Panel members also referred to a “lack of insight” by Stampp-Nix into her failings, and a “pattern of conduct which put vulnerable residents at risk of suffering harm”.