Tribunal reprimands nurse for professional misconduct

27 May 2019

A tribunal has reprimanded a nurse and imposed conditions on her registration for multiple departures from accepted standards of practice, which taken together amounted to professional misconduct.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) alleged that between 2 May and 19 August 2013, Ms Amanda Finlay’s treatment of 34 individual patients amounted to unprofessional conduct. The alleged conduct included among other things:

• providing inappropriate care and treatment
• practising outside of her scope of practice
• failing to properly document treatment
• failing to seek medical practitioner assessment, and
• falsely documenting medical officer authorisation.

Ms Finlay admitted the facts and made joint submissions with the NMBA to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (the tribunal).

On 27 August 2018, the tribunal found that Ms Finlay's treatment of the individual 34 patients amounted to unprofessional conduct and that the numerous instances of unprofessional conduct collectively amounted to professional misconduct.

The Tribunal took into account mitigating factors such as:

• the cultural challenges at the hospital at which Ms Finlay worked at the time
• Ms Finlay's cooperation, insight, remorse and remedial steps taken (such as further education)
• she had complied with conditions imposed by the NMBA for almost five years
• positive professional references, and
• the impact of the proceedings on Ms Finlay personally.

The tribunal reprimanded Ms Finlay and imposed conditions on her registration requiring mentoring.

The tribunal’s decision is published on the Austlii website.