Health worker duped bosses
A MIDLAND hospital worker responsible for ensuring patients were safe during operations has been struck off after he failed to tell bosses he had a prison sentence for deception.
But the Health Professions Council (HPC) hearing into Richard Cox revealed that bosses of City and Sandwell hospitals had failed to carry out any criminal bureau checks on the operating department practitioner when he got the job in October 2002.
Cox had been jailed but kept it a secret from hospital chiefs when he got a job as an operating department practitioner at Sandwell Hospital, in West Bromwich, claiming his only conviction was a motoring offence.
A HPC panel this week heard that it was only in October 2006 that the criminal record came to light.
The Conduct and Competence Committee panel at the HPC struck Cox from the register after finding him guilty of failing to disclose his conviction to regulator, the HPC, and his employer Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust.
Cox was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment at Wolverhampton Crown Court in June 2000 for dishonesty and deception charges of repeatedly making and using a copy of a false instrument.
Martin Ryder, chairman of the panel, said: “The panel concluded that the registrant’s conviction for matters of dishonesty and deception fell well below the standards of honesty and integrity expected of a registered health professional.
“It was a matter of serious concern that Cox had secured registration as an operating department practitioner on the basis of dishonesty and deception”
He added: “The panel was concerned to note from the bundle that the Trust had not conducted Criminal Records Bureau checks on the registrant at the time of his appointment.”
Norma Massih, the lead practitioner for main theatres and surgical day unit theatres at Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust, said: “An investigation was conducted by the trust into the registrant’s failure to disclose his convictions.
“When these matters were put to Cox, he had been evasive and dismissive.”
The panel heard Cox later accepted failing to disclose the conviction in December 2006, when trust bosses sacked him.
Cox did not turn up for the conduct hearing.
