A NURSE has been struck off after he was convicted of stealing more than £6,000 from a vulnerable patient.

Sean Richard Egan, who worked in an unnamed secure hospital in Cheshire, used his victim’s bank card to make 17 separate withdrawals over a period of six months.

The patient was said to have both learning difficulties and dementia.

A judge at Chester Crown Court jailed Egan for six months saying the offence was so serious that only a sentence of immediate custody was appropriate.

A ‘fitness to practice committee’ at the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has now taken the decision to strike Egan from the register, meaning he can never work as a nurse again.

In its report, which has just been published, the committee wrote: “This case involved the deliberate theft over some six months of significant sums of money from a vulnerable long-term patient with learning difficulties and dementia in a secure hospital where Mr Egan worked as a nurse over some six months.

“Mr Egan withdrew over £6,000 from the patient’s bank account using the patient’s bank card on 17 separate occasions. Mr Egan’s thefts stopped only when they were discovered by the hospital.”

The committee’s report states that Egan had accepted his guilt in a short email to the committee on September 2 this year.

But it goes on to say that it “showed limited insight as nowhere in the email did Mr Egan consider the impact of his dishonest actions on his patients, his colleagues or the public in general”.

The panel said that his actions had brought the profession into disrepute and there was a “clear risk” that he could do it again if allowed to continue working as a nurse.

Egan had stated in his email that he was experiencing issues with his personal finances and health at the time of his offending but the NMC panel decided this was no excuse for his “sustained dishonesty”.

His actions could have caused serious psychological harm to his victim, and other nurses may have found themselves wrongly implicated.

The panel said in its report: “Mr Egan’s actions were significant departures from the standards expected of a registered nurse, and are fundamentally incompatible with him remaining on the register.

“The panel was of the view that the findings in this particular case demonstrate that his actions were so serious that to allow him to continue practising would undermine public confidence in the profession and in the NMC as a regulatory body.

“The panel considered that this [striking off] order was necessary to mark the importance of maintaining public confidence in the profession, and to send to the public and the profession a clear message about the standard of behaviour required of a registered nurse.”