The Nursing and Midwifery Council v Sengu

1 The applicant seeks a further extension for the interim suspension order from 13th October for three months; that is, until 12th January 2018. 2 The allegations arise from a referral on 15th October 2014 from the Counter Fraud Service that she falsely represented that she had obtained academic qualifications in Zimbabwe by presenting a false certificate when applying to the University of Hertfordshire for a diploma in mental health nursing. 3 The interim suspension order was originally made on 29th January 2015. Since then, as part of seeking to lift that interim order, she presented a further certificate that is also alleged to be false, in that it had been altered. 4 These are grave charges, and when they came before the court, and indeed before me, on 6th April 2017, I concluded then that the importance of the risk to patients and protection of the public, as well as the gravity of the charges and confidence in the profession, outweighed any prejudice in its continuance to the respondent. The period of six months was to enable the proceedings to be concluded. The further delay has arisen in part from the difficulties in obtaining information because of the parallel criminal investigation, and, more recently, largely because of the delay in response from the respondent in providing the standard directions form, which took from January to July of this year to obtain the full information. 5 The date for hearing has now been fixed for 19th and 20th October 2017, and I consider, having regard to the reasons for the delay, the gravity of the allegation, the risk to patients and the importance of protection of the public and confidence in the standards of the profession outweigh any continuing prejudice to the respondent. So in those circumstances, I make the further order for an extension. I do make clear that any further extension from this court would require very specific justification to avoid continuing prejudice to the respondent. 6 I therefore order that the interim order be extended to 4 p.m. on 12th January 2018. The respondent has permission on giving three days' written notice to the applicant to apply to the court to vary or discharge the order. There will be no order for costs.