Nurse struck off for ‘dishonesty’ in Sussex job interviews

Filipe Rego, was suspended from nursing for nine months in August 2015, after carrying out an ‘invasive’ manual procedure without obtaining consent from a patient with dementia at Kingsland House Care Home in Shoreham in April 2013.

He was dismissed from Kingsland House Care Home for gross misconduct in September but applied for a job at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust saying he left the care home to ‘search for a new job and new experiences’ .

Rego also failed to tell interviewers at Darlington Court Care Home in Rustington he was part of Nursing and Midwifery Council proceedings and that he had been dismissed by Kingsland House Care Home.

Rego was struck off after facing a hearing by the Nursing and Midwifery Council who found his fitness to practise was ‘impaired’.

A report of the hearing, which took place from October 19 to 26, said: “You [Rego] deprived both Darlington Court Care Home and BSUH of the opportunity of making a valid risk assessment of your practice when making a decision as to whether to employ you or not.

“You were dishonest in your applications forms and interviews about your employment history and fitness to practice.”

The panel heard Rego ‘continued to lie’ to the ward manager at BSUH when he was asked directly if he had been dismissed from his previous employment.

The report said Mr Rego’s dishonesty has been sustained over a ‘significant period of time’, adding it was not a ‘single instance’ of misconduct.

The report said: “Dishonesty is particularly serious because it strikes at the heart of the trust that individual registrants must be able to place in each other.

“The panel has conclude that a striking-off order is the only sanction which will be sufficient to protect the public interest and to maintain confidence in the profession and its regulation.”